


from the ashes you crawl

by PolzkaDotz



Series: we all go to hell [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Deities, Dragon!Andrew, M/M, Slow Burn, a roadtrip with no roads, everybody has magic, god!Neil, no kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2019-11-19 15:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18137669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PolzkaDotz/pseuds/PolzkaDotz
Summary: Neil, a magical being who was once worshiped as a god, has been running away for too long and he's tired. He thought by now his father would've given up on finding him and getting what Neil's mother once stole, but so far no such luck.Without seeing any other option, Neil goes to Fox Security so he can finally travel to where his mortality was buried, alongside his mother's thievery. And, hopefully, Neil will finally be able to die.Alsoa road trip on air/Dragons who are not taxis but sort of are





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!!!! Thank you for clicking on my fic!
> 
> First of all, I just wanted to make it clear that i wrote this on nanowrimo 2018. It's been sitting on a folder in my google drive to be edited for a shamefully long time, so im just sucking it up and posting it! Also, my good frienderino Kayla is the only reason i got my shit together to post! Thank you so much Kayla ily <3333
> 
> Honestly, i just wanted to write a story where Neil was able to run for longer but also started to really give up on keep going after such a long time. 
> 
> Sorry??? Hope y'all like it!
> 
> ps: title is from My Chemical Romance's "Mama"

Neil was watching the sunrise and trying not to feel sorry for himself. A bird chirped in the distance, flying in front of the sun not long after and then it was gone.

Neil sighed as he watched it disappear. He was honestly so fucking tired of running around Earth, trying to escape his father’s men, scared his father himself was going to escape his leash and hunt him.

On top of it all, Neil was alone. Had been for a couple of centuries now. Sometimes he brushed paths with creatures like him, but he always ran away from them even if once he might have called them… acquaintances. Or ex-coworkers. It was impossible to predict what information might make its way back to his father, so unless he was tired of isolating himself in forests or mountains, he stayed comfortably away from too much civilization and basically any other sentient creature.

It's been a while since he had a near, violent brush with anyone paid by his father, but it happens every once in a while. Much more often then it did when his mother was still alive. He was following all of the rules she'd set up in his brain so, so long ago, but honestly, they were outdated and that was why he was still getting found.

For starters, human technology had advanced greatly since they became runners. It'd advanced even more since his mother's death. Two hundred years of being hunted in ways that Neil had only a superficial understanding, because he simply couldn't really process how technology had advanced so quickly. Mostly, Neil was just... lucky.

His luck was bound to run out someday. Also, Neil was tired of waiting for his father to stop caring about his sorry existence. After so many thousand years (maybe two, three thousand years? Neil was bad with keeping time on the Gregorian calendar), Neil had to accept that he wasn't going to be left alone.

That's why Neil needed to kill himself before he was killed.

Neil didn't really have a problem with death, or a latent desire to die per se. He'd known two or three death deities in his time, and they were, honestly, alright. Bit moody, but fine. It's just that... a human deciding they want to die it's easy. Humans are, for the most part, fragile as porcelain. Place them the wrong way and you crack them, break them irreparably.

A more than two, maybe three thousand years creature who was worshipped as a god needs some assistance when dying. Especially when this creature left their mortality buried inside a volcano on a tiny island near what today is called Asia (probably Japan).

So Neil's To-Do List was:

1\. Hire someone to protect him on the trip to the island;

2\. Track his steps towards his buried mortality with his magic;

3\. Die, and

4\. Not be captured and forced to submit himself to his father before doing all of it.

Maybe he should be worrying about making number 4 the top priority, but whatever.

* * *

Neil had some options when it came to security.

No, that's a lie. He had absolutely no other choice than to approach Fox Security.

Fox Security was not exactly a Security Company in the sense of hired muscle, maybe employees who had some military background. They were more of an old-fashioned guild of powerful magic users (or really good fighters) who could be hired for the highest bidder. Or any bid, really. They had particular fame of working for cheap if they deemed the cause "worthy".

They were risky, Neil knew. Fox Security was known for getting whatever job they were given done—but not neatly. Not exactly subtly, either. They were, collectively, crazy.

But Fox Security had a policy of asking very few questions out of their clients. That had caused some troubles for them in the past, one or two employees were imprisoned for unsavory businesses such as murder or torture, but lately, Fox Security was... different.

Oh, they were still reckless. They still caused a lot of major destruction sometimes, especially when fighting in public. They had little respect for private or public properties (and for some of them that “little respect” was essentially nonexistent) and their constant appearances on the news were frankly a turn-off with you were searching for discretion.

From Neil's (frankly, poor) research on the library's newspapers, the wilder cards were Gordon and the Minyard bunch. Honestly, It was a little weird how Neil couldn't see _why_ they still had a job with the company, even weirder how he couldn't figure out a plausible reason for why they were still getting hired by clients. Gordon just for being a really volatile ogre, but the Minyard bunch was just... a fucking mess. Besides, they never did solo missions, always the four of them being absolute messes and always causing major destructions.

Not surprising, though. What can you expect out of two dragons, a powerful mage, and a mind-manipulator, really?

So, although he was aware that he had few options, Neil could at least make sure that he wouldn't hire the riskier of the bunch. Maybe there was some miracle employee on the Fox Security’s role that was so good they'd never made the papers.

At the end of the day, surely it couldn't be worth it to hire such flighty risks.

* * *

Trying to get into contact with Fox Security was... tricky. He was able to get as close as he felt comfortable but it was hard when he didn't really know _how_ technology worked. His first thought had been just going inside as a walk-in client, but Fox Security was placed in a very busy street on the magic side of Palmetto district. Probably near some security cameras that Neil's father might have access to, who knows (definitely not Neil). They had an email account, but Neil barely knew how to Google things on the library's computers, let alone how to send an email.

In the end, he splurged ten dollars on a burner phone that he sort of knew how to operate and called from the protection of a public bathroom of a dirty McDonald's stall at noon.

"Fox Security, this is Abby, how can I help you?"

"Uhm," Neil swallowed his nerves and took a deep breath. "I would like to request a long-term protection detail on a trip."

"Of course." There was the faint sound of a keyboard. "What is your name, sir?"

"Mr. Josten."

"And how long is your trip, Mr. Josten?"

"Undetermined."

"To where?"

"East."

"...Where in East?"

"Undetermined."

"Of course. Is it an urgent matter?"

"Yes."

"Alright." There was more typing and then Abby clicked her tongue. "Wait for a moment while our supervisor evaluates your request, please."

Neil's phone made a tiny click in his ear and then a pleasant song started playing. Neil had to battle each agonizing second against his paranoia and runner instincts. No, they were probably not contacting his father. He hadn't even given Abby a name that was real enough for his father to recognize.

He hoped Fox Security didn't have access to his current location. _Everything's fine, there's absolutely no reason to worry, everything is—_

"Mr. Josten, your request has been approved." Abby's voice startled Neil for a tiny second, and his breath caught slightly on the way in. "However, because of the vagueness of it, we'd like to do an interview in person."

"I-I can't..."

"We can provide transportation if you are a few hours away from us and protect you on the way over to our headquarters."

Neil wanted to ask how near they were willing to go pick up someone. Neil wanted to say that he was uncomfortable with having to disclose his location. He wanted to say that he was not interested in hiring them after all.

But like a reckless idiot, he said that he was already in Palmetto and that yes, he'd liked to be picked up.

"That's great. I'm going to stay with you on the phone until our temporary bodyguard reaches you, okay?"

Neil nodded, even though she couldn't see. If it was a trap, he could probably escape it. They were not his father's people and from what Neil had found in his research, Neil thought he'd be able to overpower whoever came for him.

Neil would be fine.

He had to be.

True to her words, Abby stayed on the phone with him. She didn't ask anything, but she kept a harmless stream of chatting on her end. Almost as if she knew how Neil was feeling, she assured him that all calls made to Fox Security were safe—magically and technologically. She also gave him some tips: don't leave his location until she says his protection is waiting for him, what he should expect of the interview... there was more stuff, but Neil was sort of tuning her out unconsciously. Probably due to how wired up he was.

Not long after Abby told him, "Your bodyguard has arrived at your location." A couple of seconds later, the door to the McDonalds that had been eerily silent opened with a dramatic bang. Neil's breath caught in his throat, and Abby said, "What is happening there, Mr. Josten?"

At the same time, a monotone voice said in the bathroom, "Mr. Josten. It is time to leave."

Abby apparently heard it, because she mumbled something unintelligible and said, "I'm sorry for Mr. Minyard's behavior, Mr. Josten. Everything is fine, I assure you."

Neil said "Okay" to Abby and got out of the bathroom at the same time he ended the call.

He didn't know which Minyard this was. He was smaller than Neil, which was impressive since Neil was not exactly big. Dressed all in black, Minyard seemed bored with everything. He gave Neil a dismissive up and down look, and left. Neil followed him, trying not to let his mood get the best of him. He knew the Minyards and their friends were unusual, and not who Neil wanted to hire. He didn't have to pretend to like Minyard, and Minyard seemed to think the same.

At least Neil was sure he would be safe until they reached Fox Security.

* * *

Or maybe not so sure.

Minyard drove like a madman on the run from the madmen police. He flew past most of the stop signs and red lights, stopping just seconds before he actually did with some of them, definitely blew past yellow signs and seemed to have a vendetta against going slow at all.

Neil clutched his seat and his tiny luggage. Minyard looked at him on one of those red lights and said, "Don't be so afraid to die."

Neil simply looked at him, darkly. He was _not_ afraid to die. He wouldn't even be badly hurt if they were in a car wreck. But accidents were attractions to everyone, _anyone,_ and Neil definitely was afraid of getting on any spotlights.

However, they arrived safely at the Fox Security building. Minyard had a tiny control in his hand that opened the gate for the garage and the windows were tinted, so Neil was soothed slightly in a state of fake security. Minyard parked like he drove, and they went silently on the modern elevator (that Neil rarely had opportunities to see, let alone ride in it) up to the last floor on the building.

Neil was suddenly struck by self-doubt. This was after all undoubtedly stupid. The kind of decision that could lead him to be found before he could get his mortality back. Neil didn't exactly fancy being tortured while he couldn't die.

There was nowhere to run though, not anymore. He also had very little desire to keep running. He'd sort of planned this, followed his rushed plans with little thought and now his bed was made. Nothing to do but to lie on it.

Neil sighed and felt Minyard look at him for a fraction of a second. The elevator's doors opened silently and Neil stepped out of it automatically. He startled when the elevator's doors started to close, leaving him alone in the unknown place. Neil looked back at Minyard and was able to catch a quick glance at the man's impassive face before the doors closed completely.

Neil breathed deeply and turned around to observe the room. It looked like a waiting room, with a simple whiteboard on the wall. In it, there was a crude drawing of the corridor, with arrows indicating which of the four doors belonged to whom.

There was an island in the left corner of the room with a computer still on, but no one behind it. Neil balanced himself in the balls of his feet unsure of what to do when one of the last doors in the corridor opened and a man and a woman stopped for a few seconds to look at him.

Neil gave a quick glance to the map and saw “WYMACK” written for the door.

"Mr. Josten, I assume?" The woman said, and Neil matched her voice to Abby's.

Neil gulped and then nodded. He crossed his arms and tried to squash the urge to run.

Abby was smiling at him as they approached but didn't offer to shake his hand. When they were four feet away, they stopped to look down at him.

Neil for his turn stopped avoiding the man's gaze. He was big and Neil had to suppress the involuntary flinch that wanted to explode out of him. He'd always been uncomfortable around big, burly humans. With his frayed nerves, it was even harder to mask it.

"It's a pleasure to meet you,” Abby said, making Neil look at her. “I'm Abby, who talked to you on the phone.”

"And I'm Wymack. David Wymack." Wymack also didn't offer a handshake, but his voice wasn't as soothing as Abby. His voice actually matched the package well, all thunderous and powerful. He was not yelling, but it... echoed. In an unsettling way.

Neil didn't have nice memories of men with such big presences, so he was automatically wary.

Wymack didn't seem to think it was weird not to get any kind of reply back. Abby kept smiling but didn't say a word as she gave Neil a wide berth so she could sit in front of the computer. Wymack didn't lose his time too. He just turned around and went back to the room he'd come out of, saying "Follow me."

Neil hesitated for a few seconds only, and then he went. He didn't look at Abby, but he could feel the waves of encouragement coming from her.

* * *

The interview was exactly what Abby said it would be (also what Neil had gathered from researching newspapers). Very few questions asked, but a lot of being stared at by Wymack.

It was weird. Wymack didn't ask any questions about Neil his life, or reasons to want protection, nothing at all like that. He looked at Neil for a long minute when they entered his office, which was sort of unsettling, but it wasn't a calculating look. It was like being acknowledged but on a whole different level. Like actually being _seen_.

Not all magical abilities were easy to disguise but Wymack was the best one Neil had seen in at least three centuries. Neil knew something was being done to analyze him, but he had no idea _what_ , just that it was harmless. The questions Wymack asked were so inane and unimportant that Neil just answered them automatically, and it took a while to realize that he was relaxing more and more with each boring thing Wymack wanted to know. It wasn't magic, it was just… good interrogation skills.

It was an impressively subtle tactic to calm someone. Neil almost never engaged in small talk but it was clearly something that he should add to his repertoire.

It didn't take long for Wymack to announce that he wouldn't be turning Neil away. However, he made it clear that not all of his employees would accept the mission.

“Whoever you decide to approach gets to decide if they're gonna work with you or not,” Wymack explained, with a deep frown. “Don't come bother me about any shit if they decide they don't want you.” Then he led Neil to an empty room beside Wymack's office and Neil stared at the files of each Fox Security's employees.

Wymack made sure to also make it clear that they were probably going to ask for a big payment upfront because of the uncertain conditions of Neil's request. He also said that whatever details about the mission that Neil wanted to share were to be shared with whomever he chose to hire. Essentially, Wymack didn't want to know anything.

“Plausible deniability,” Wymack said and that was all.

Wymack didn't stay, simply stating that he would go back to his own office. He said that Neil had however long he wanted to decide and that if he had any doubts Abby could help him.

It had already been forty minutes of mindlessly reading through files, and Neil was a little frustrated. He thought that Fox Security had a lot more employees than those that appeared constantly on the news. He'd been counting on those fictional powerful beings that were actually good at their job. That there was more to this company other than the cheap prices and powerful, disastrous employees.

But no. Fox Security had an impressive number of nine whole employees. Neil had automatically discarded the Minyards, Hemmick, Day and Gordon, not even bothering with opening their folders. The most promising one left was Boyd, and... that was it.

Not that the other three remaining employees had bad files, just... two of them, Wilds and Reynolds, were elementarists. Wilds’ element was water, and Reynolds’ was wind. A bit incompatible to Neil's core, to say the least.

And the last employee, Walker? Well. Neil had very little use for a necromancer. A necromancer who was a fighter was always good, but her file explicitly said she was against raising an army of the dead for "quarreling purposes".

Also, an army would attract attention. So she was out.

Neil was left with Boyd. Boyd’s specialty was listed as “fireballs”. Neil remembered from his research that those fireballs behaved similarly to tiny, impressive bombs. Combined with Neil powers, they could cause havoc on whoever tried to follow them.

The problem was, Boyd was not exactly as skilled in close combat as Neil would've hoped for. Sure, his file said he had an experience with boxing, but just by comparing to Walker’s file, Boyd’s was... probably not enough. His powers were perfect but his fighting would not be perfect to defend Neil against his father's men.

Neil looked at the automatically discarded files with dread. He still thought it wouldn't be a good idea to choose any of them just thanks to their behaviors alone. However, it would be crazy to simply refuse to read their files and see if they would, hypothetically, be a better fit.

Neil didn't have to read for long before deciding Gordon was still automatically out. He was an ogre, so he was supposed to have enough fighting experience, but his files made it obvious that his abilities were even more abysmally bad than Boyd's. He also said in his file that he was unable to leave the country for "personal reasons". Neil didn't feel too torn about that.

The rest of the files made things a lot more clear to Neil. Hemmick, the mind-manipulator, had powers so weak it was laughable to call him a mind-manipulator. He was at most a mind suggestor. It was also stated in his files that he had absolutely zero knowledge in any kind of martial arts. Neil stared at his folder for a long time trying to see _why_ he was still working with a security company but failing.

The Minyard twins and Day though... They were a lot more interesting to Neil's necessities, which he hated to admit. One of the Minyards was the weakest of the three, just because he relied too much on his natural power to fight. A dragon was indeed a good use in a fight, and Neil could also use them to fly instead of having to use dodgy human transportation, but this Minyard had absolutely no experience with fighting in human form. It wasn't a guarantee that they would always have space for a dragon to actively fight, and this Minyard didn't have the ability to partially shift.

The other Minyard did, though. He was also as good of a fighter as Walker. His file was, honestly, the one that fit Neil's necessities the most. However, his customer reviews clearly stated that he was a very difficult person to deal with, from the nicest to the worst wording of that sentiment possible. Neil looked at that folder for a few seconds before picking the last one.

Day was powerful. Neil didn't need to read his file for long to realize that. He had the discipline a mage needed, he could fight both with offensive magic and physical abilities, and he was, according to his customer reviews, "extremely personable".

However, Neil couldn't help but notice that the prices of all the four employees were incredibly low. Suspiciously low. For example, Gordon's files had stated he didn't work for less than sixty dollars per hour. Neil would expect Hemmick's and one of the Minyards’ rates to be equal to that, but their files said a minimum of forty dollars per hour. Day and the other Minyard had a lot of potential, but their prices were still only fifty dollars per hour.

Neil was baffled by that until he was able to find the catch because obviously there was one: The four of them had a clausure that stated they could only be hired together.

Neil sighed. He wished he could hire them just to kill him, but that was obviously impossible. Not only because of some pesky human laws would that forbid it, but also because Neil had to get his mortality back in order to die.

It was tiring to sit there, weighing his possible choices. Right now, he'd have to choose either Boyd (good for long-distance fighting, but they'd have to rely on luck and Neil's fighting abilities if someone sneaked up on them) or the Minyard bunch (some good fighters, some deadbeats, too numerous so higher chances of being recognized by someone).

The options were not so good.

Wymack had made it clear that he could request an interview with the employees. Reynolds and Wilds were currently unavailable, he'd said, but the rest were around the building.

Neil heard a door open and close, then he heard quiet footsteps that stopped at the door to the office he was on. He was instantly alert, hoping whoever was outside would just keep walking. Instead, he watched the door open and there was Wymack himself, looking at Neil inquisitive. Neil let out a relieved sigh.

“Have you find anything that interests you?" Wymack asked.

Neil hadn't summoned Wymack in any way but he had been in fact ready to ask for help. Neil breathed deeply and put all the files back in the table in front of him.

"Yes. I would like to interview both Boyd and Day, or the Minyard. Or… all of them?” Wymack watched Neil for a few seconds and Neil tried not to squirm. “I don't know how it works with them.”

Wymack nodded and motioned for Neil to get up. "Okay. Let's move you to the interview room and they'll meet you in a few minutes."

* * *

Boyd came first.

He was tall, really friendly, and had obviously fallen by the act of Neil's general youth. Neil knew “Call me Matt” wasn't the person to be hired because he seemed to think Neil was a teenager in need. Someone with so little awareness of how dangerous Neil was would not be so helpful to see traps.

It was sad because Neil had liked his personality. He had the kind of energy that was heartwarming, and Neil thought it would he'd be a good person to travel with. It could be just Neil being so unused to nice people after such a long time alone (and even when he wasn't alone, he could not describe his mother's company as “nice”), but he thought it wasn't just his own being craving softness. Matt was just a magnet for good vibes and Neil genuinely liked it.

Unfortunately, Neil only needed to think about how the trip was going to end with him dying and suddenly he didn't want to bring Matt along with him anymore. Call it a hunch, but Neil didn't think Matt would react well to that news after probably becoming emotionally attached to Neil.

Matt offered to shake hands. Neil only took it because he felt bad for not hiring the guy. Wymack, who sat beside Matt on the other side of the table, raised his eyebrows at Neil after a few seconds of no conversation. Neil shook his head and Wymack nodded. Matt gave Neil a sweet smile and didn't seem to have any hard feelings about not being hired.

Wymack took Matt outside and in came one of the Minyards. Neil didn't know if it was the same one that gave him a lift. He was dressed all in black like the one from before, but Neil had been too anxious to notice what exactly the guy had been wearing, so he couldn't compare.

Wymack introduced him as Andrew Minyard and, after glaring at him for a few seconds, Wymack got out of the room and closed the door, leaving Neil alone as the guy sat in front of him.

Silence reign for a long time. Neil was in no hurry to be the first one to crack under it, and Andrew seemed to be busy with scrutinizing him. Neil simply waited for the questions to start, but Andrew kept staring at him.

"Do the others trust you to pick their jobs?" Neil asked finally. Andrew's expression was frozen in disinterest, but Neil still waited for a few seconds to see if he was going to get a reply. It didn't happen. "That's a lot of trust to put in someone's opinion.”

Andrew blinked at him for a few heartbeats, and said, "We can't trust you. How would I let them meet you without knowing if you are safe?"

Neil frowned. "This is a Security Company. They should be able to protect themselves."

"Maybe against you. But with how vague your request was?" Andrew raised one single eyebrow at Neil. Neil was amazed that even that was done in a very inexpressive way—raising one single eyebrow could be doubt, mirth, and other trillion different things but Neil had absolutely no idea what Andrew meant by it. “It raises many red flags.”

With that, Neil knew that Andrew was probably the reason why all of them had to be hired together. He was obviously the leader—or maybe just super protective. Like a mother hen.

They sat in silence for a while. If he was being honest, Neil was almost giving up on the whole idea of hiring protection. The money wasn't the problem; the fucked up aspect of it all was that it was starting to look like too much of a bother. Convincing Andrew who, by the lack of questions, seemed to be uninterested in being hired was going to take more energy than Neil wanted to spend. Worst of it all was that he didn't even want to hire any of them in the first place! This felt pointless.

He was almost getting up and giving up. However, it was then that he noticed the way Andrew was staring at him changed. It was almost challenging, except for how blank Andrew looked. It didn't take long for Neil to realize that it wasn't really Andrew who was challenging him, it was Andrew's dragon. It was weird because the dragon was still _Andrew_ , but it seemed much more receptive to expressing emotions, at least to Neil.

It was clear that the dragon didn't believe Neil could convince Andrew to protect him.

Which made Neil... not mad. But maybe it helped fuel him a little bit.

So that's what made Neil start to detail what the mission would be about without waiting for Andrew's questions.

"I need to reach a tiny island in the East, and it would be preferable to do the trip on dragon's back. No human transportation and the least amount of contact possible with the human world, the better. I don't know how long we'll take to reach as close to it as I'm comfortable to go with company, but if I had to guess I'd say a month maximum—if we're traveling only a few hours per day under the protection of the night sky. Also, we need to do it inconspicuously so I won't be kidnapped."

Andrew hummed. "Are these people gonna use magic or not? Also, why are they after you?"

“They are probably gonna use it,” Neil said, and then shook his head slowly. "And I can't say why."

"No," Andrew replied. "You _won't_ say why."

Neil shrugged. Same difference.

Andrew thought for a bit, and then said, "One million."

"What?"

"One million for us to do the mission."

"One million upfront?"

"Yes," Andrew said, and then slowly added. "Each."

One million upfront for each of them. Four million, plus whatever Neil would have to pay after. If Neil had to guess, Andrew was only giving him this price to make him change his mind about hiring them.

It was, after all, an insane amount of money. Neil had his money in different bank accounts, and he had close to three million altogether, but he also had antique pieces of furniture and art pieces that could be sold. Still, it was a lot more money than he was usually comfortable with wasting.

Neil would've been more than able to do the travel on his own without wasting all that. Hell, if he hired _Matt_ he could give the four million dollars to him, and Matt would be more grateful for it than Minyard.

However, he was fairly sure that he would have to use human transportation with Matt. It would be nice to avoid that.

"That's insane," Neil told Andrew, who shrugged with one shoulder. “Five hundred thousand each.”

"It is not negotiable. One million each or nothing, and later you'll pay our normal hourly rates plus a bonus for the dangerousness of the job, which can be rounded for a little more than two hundred thousand dollars each. However..." Andrew rearranged his position in the chair and crossed his arms. "I can lower the price you will have to pay later if you give me some truths about the trip."

Neil narrowed his eyes at him.

"Not gonna happen."

Andrew got up and started to walk away. "Not my pocket, not my problem. Do tell Wymack what you decide quickly, though. We will not be unemployed and available forever."

Neil wanted to shout at Andrew's back that he was a god and refused to be disrespected like this. Also wanted to shout that it wouldn't matter if he got the price of the second half lowered or not because Neil would be probably too dead to pay them, but that would be a lie. Neil would never do something as unhonorable as dying with an unpaid debt. He was annoyed at Andrew, that's all, but still much aware that he'd had no pride for a long time now. It was easy to overlook small offenses like this when he got good at putting things down on a scale.

So when Wymack entered the interview room, looking around as if expecting everything to be broken but finding nothing out of order, he looked at Neil and said, "Well?"

Neil sighed and wanted to say he was going to think about it, but he had already made his (probably bad) decision.

"I want to hire Minyard and the rest."

* * *

It took them almost two weeks to depart.

First things first, Neil was introduced to all of the others—not only from Andrew's group but also Renee Walker, Allison Reynolds, Dan Wilds, and even Seth Gordon. Andrew was always present, but only when his group was around Neil. He was a dark and silent shadow over them, but Neil tried not to let himself get annoyed by him. Much.

Nicky was, by far, the most human-like of the bunch. Not that Kevin, Allison, Dan, Renee, and Matt were not human. They were, but Nicky's powers were in such a different level compared to the others that he seemed _normal_ when close to them.

Nicky was also just overwhelmingly bubbly, irreversibly unthoughtful at times, and always _babbling._ He was, for Neil, the epitome of the stereotypical human, to the point that it was uncomfortable to be near him for long periods of time.

Kevin, on the other hand, was as gloomy as Nicky was cheerful. He never smiled, was always near Andrew, and had to give his unwanted, unasked input into every little detail of the trip that Neil shared.

Aaron was less socially unpleasant than his twin brother (not that Nicky or Kevin were particularly pleasant), but that was just because he kept himself out of Neil's way. He tried to not outwardly express his feelings about Neil, seemingly more than satisfied with the one million dollars he'd already received, but he still almost couldn't hold back his sneering towards Neil. Andrew was his already introduced unpleasant self.

The other employees _clearly_ passed their times around Matt more often than the Minyard bunch, because they were much nicer (except Seth, but he was always hiding from Neil). Some of them had a much more electric personality than Matt (like Dan), or much more peaceful ones (like Renee), or much more mischievous ones (like Allison), but they all seemed to be falling over themselves to help Neil with whatever he needed.

Nonetheless, the actual planning of the trip was infernal. For Neil. Because he didn't want to let anyone help him plan.

Neil wanted to keep all his secrets as close to his heart as possible, but Andrew and Aaron would need general directions of where to head. Especially since Neil had insisted that they should go with the most basic technology on them possible. Nicky visibly wanted to protest, but Neil only needed to remind him of how much he was paying to effectively shut him up.

They had to buy supplies (the bill being footed by Neil, obviously), and Aaron and Nicky were responsible for that. Andrew didn't let them go alone though, which meant that Neil was often stuck arguing with Kevin about anything for hours.

Because he'd already _technically_ hired The Monsters, as Allison made him aware they were called, Neil didn't leave the Fox Security headquarters for the entirety of his stay. For someone that was a runner through and through, being forced to stay inside was stressful, to say the least. Put into perspective that he was inside, with a lot of magical users around him, some of them very friendly (too friendly) and some almost outright aggressive… it was a recipe to make Neil long for the start of their trip.

After everything was finally gathered and everybody had said their goodbyes to whoever wanted them, they waited for nightfall and then Andrew and Aaron took their dragon forms.

Both were black dragons, which would help them a lot if they continued to fly only by nightlight. Andrew was slightly bulkier than Aaron in dragon form, much like in human form, but putting that aside everything on them looked identical. Their scales shone with the same undertone of pearly sheen, almost like specks of glitter embedded in them, but they were subtle at night. They probably wouldn't draw much attention as they flew.

All the Foxes had come to the roof to see them part. Neil tried to tell them that it was unnecessary, but no one even pretended to listen to him.

So they were there to witness Kevin climbing onto Andrew alone, while Neil and Nicky shared the space right where Aaron's neck met his body. It was uncomfortable to be so close to a human, especially a chatterbox like Nicky, but Neil simply breathed deeply and ignored it.

The Foxes waved as they ascended into the moonless night, but Neil didn't watch them for long. He looked up to the stars and imagined he was already on his island. He didn't trust it, but he still had wanted to believe in the naiveté of the feeling that said everything was going to be just fine in the end.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the trip begins! there's loads of complaining, a bit of bonding and a cliffhanger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was supposed to have posted this yesterday, but I had a migraine! The screaming children in my scholarship program probably didn't help! Also, i tried having a tiny nap and woke up today's morning so! A bit busy!
> 
> Im gonna try to keep updating on the weekends, so if theres nothing here on saturday, wait for sunday!
> 
> ps: rating went up because of a tiny bit of not-really described violence and a bit of cremmation. if anyone need me to tag anything else, please tell me
> 
> pps: thanks once again goes to Kayla for inspiring the balloon bit! love u bro

Neil's hopes and dreams of having a quick, safe trip were destroyed too early for his liking.

Nonetheless, he couldn't say he was surprised. They've been traveling for just five days when they were found and attacked out of fucking nowhere.

They'd left Palmetto with a lot of supplies that were being carried mostly on Andrew's large back, Kevin making sure to keep everything even more secure. Neil had insisted on the logic of having minimal to no contact with human civilization so that they could not be spotted easily.

“We'll be cryptids,” Nicky whispered when Neil told them, and Aaron scowled at him.

During the planning of the trip, Neil had suggested they could just sleep out in the open, taking turns to watch over their camp, but neither Nicky nor Kevin were excited about that.

“You might look like a wild boy, but we civilized people enjoy sleeping on _beds_ , even if they are from _strangers,_ ” Nicky had said, then dissolved into grumbling about some Mogli, whatever it was.

Neil argued with them for a while, but quickly grew tired and just gave up. Especially when Kevin started to just repeat, “Magic can keep us safe, magic can keep us safe!” like the most annoying, childish chant ever.

That resulted in their first night being spent at the first motel they were able to spot from the air—and that turned a blind eye to their sheer number.

It was sort of an adjustment to Neil, even though he'd been living with more people than he was used to in the last few days (which in itself had been hard to come to terms with).

(Some of) the foxes had been almost manic with their “Let's not leave Neil alone” vibes. Of those, only Nicky was with Neil right now. So although he had been mostly quiet throughout their nighttime flying, Neil was sure that Nicky would've chatted away at the motel too if Andrew hadn't lost his patience and threatened Nicky into silence with a knife.

Once they'd gotten inside the motel, they had to face the issue of rooming. They didn't want to split up and they had enough sleeping bags for at least three people to sleep crammed on the safest spot in the room, while the rest slept on the bed as bait or any stupid reason like that.

The clerk had given them all impressed looks when they asked for one single room, the look worsening after they informed him that it didn't matter that he only had triple beds maximum, which made Nicky giggled quietly to himself all the way to their room.

If Neil thought really hard and deep about it, he honestly didn't care about having sleeping arrangements that were comfortable, so he just took one of the bags without a word (because obviously, he was the one who had to be in the safest place). Surprisingly, Andrew took a sleeping bag and Nicky took the last one. Kevin and Aaron huffed quietly about sharing a bed but in the end, Kevin settled himself upside down and fell asleep like a thrown-rock on a lake.

Nicky fell asleep next, while it took Andrew and Neil a few minutes to stop annoyingly shoving at one another. Andrew went down a long time after Nicky, but so quietly that it took Neil a few minutes to notice he was the only one awake.

Blinking at the ceiling, Neil tried and failed to believe that this was really happening. Neil didn't need to sleep much, and he'd slept horribly in the last couple of weeks, and part of it was how unbelievable his situation was.

He was able to catch a couple of hours of napping, and that was enough. He didn't remember any of his dreams thanks to his short period of slumber, something he was grateful for.

Since most of them were trying to shift their internal clocks to nocturnal, they didn't go anywhere during the day, just tried to nap and eat their provisions.

Nicky didn't seem to enjoy that and was vocal about his displeasure. He kept mumbling to himself in different motels about TV show episodes he was missing. Aaron kept pinching him to shut him up, but it never lasted long.

Kevin had brought three books with him. The covers looked boring, and Neil quickly lost interest in watching when he was awake.

Andrew was the most interesting to watch. He almost never looked at Neil or tried to speak with him, so got stared at. A lot. The thing Neil disliked the most was when Andrew would put all his knives lined up on the ground and sharpen them. Neil could feel that some of them were enchanted, and those were worked on for much longer than the rest.

Neil always kept his attention on Andrew when the knives were out. He would've preferred if Andrew used modern weaponry for defense, mostly just for the sake of Neil's own mental state. Knives always brought out uncomfortable memories and, with so many of them around, Neil couldn't relax and sleep for long.

So he had to make peace with watching Andrew. Only once Andrew acknowledged Neil. It was the third day of the trip, and he said “Staring” without looking at Neil while he started to put his knives away.

When the last one was gone, Neil sighed, knowing that it was dark enough outside and Andrew was about to start the long process of waking everybody up. Neil went after the food, even though he didn't feel hungry. Not long after, all of the other started to appear in many different stages of awareness.

They ate in silence, even though Nicky very much looked like he wanted to speak loads. When they were finished, Andrew went to sort out their check-out, searching for the same empty parking lot they'd landed before. He and Aaron shifted, Kevin and Neil put their stuff onto their backs while Nicky complained quietly to himself and not much longer they were taking flight.

Flying during the night was stressful for Neil, even though he made sure to keep his nervousness to himself. His powers were much weakened without the power boost of the sun and Neil dreaded what would happen if they were attacked.

However, it was also incredibly peaceful. Neil remembered riding on a motorcycle once with his mother, neither of them using helmets, and it was very similar but much windier. Probably because Aaron and Andrew could cover much more distance than a tiny bike.

Nicky would blabber to Neil, even though Neil pretended not to hear him. Without Andrew there to glare at him, Nicky let all the words he wanted to say during the day out. He'd learned early on to not ask Neil any questions but that was certainly not a sad thing to Nicky.

Neil would never tell him but it was a nice reminder to keep himself present, instead of going back to his usual M.O.: don't think at all, just react. It was impossible to retreat into himself with Nicky chattering away, and Neil would keep being secretly glad for it.

Their next resting place was a motel near to a busy highway, so landing before sunrise was an exercise in faith. There were sizeable woods near it, but Neil still made sure to tell the others again that it was too dangerous to keep sleeping in motels.

Andrew ignored him, Aaron scoffed, Kevin frowned and Nicky just said, “I'm not sleeping on the streets or in the middle of a field. Think about how we could get trapped by Faes.”

Neil scowled, but swallow his reply that the Seelie and Unseelie Courts were not physically in North America right now. If they were, Neil could've passed a few decades with them, safe and in relatively good company. Also, the Fae would have no interest in trapping nobodies like them.

In the end, keeping himself displeased but quiet was what Neil chose to do.

Aaron looked exhausted after flying for so long. Andrew held up his front better, but he was dragging his feet a little bit more than usual. Nicky got the bedroom for them, charming the receptionist so that she couldn't quite remember their faces, and not long after they were eating on the floor of their room.

They settled themselves up (Neil, Kevin, and Aaron on the blind point of the room, Andrew and Nicky sharing a bed). Aaron was out like a light, and Neil felt Andrew follow him up much quicker than usual, but this time Andrew's sleeping form was twitchier than usual too. If Neil had to guess, he was probably having nightmares.

Neil was not tired, just a bit achy from napping poorly on Aaron's back. He was also too restless to sleep, still feeling uneasiness over how close they were to that highway.

When the air around the bed starts to simmer with heat, Neil yelled “Andrew!” and jumped to his feet, already prepared to fight. His screamed had the benefit of waking all of the others too but Andrew was the only one who went for his weapons.

Fuck. Neil was angry enough that he genuinely considered chewing them out for not jumping into action, but he didn't have time.

He didn't know the four men or the two women that were expelled from the portal around the bed. Their room, which was already small, seemed much smaller with so many people in it.

Andrew was instantly on his feet on top of the bed, Nicky on his elbows, finally with a terrified face. Aaron and Kevin were scrambling to their feet, still with no fighting postures.

The people were talking though, and they claimed all of Neil's attention.

“Come with us,” they said in unison. Neil heard Nicky swear under his breath, obviously creeped out. “He will always find you. You need to pay your debts.”

Aaron turned his head to look at Neil with wide eyes, but Neil didn't bother looking back or explaining anything. He only replied with a calm “No,” and the intruder wordlessly attacked him.

The fight was quick, both because they couldn't fight all at the same time thanks to the limited space and also because they seemed to only want to hurt Neil with their grabby, weaponless fingers, not the others.

It was a message, Neil knew. His father was probably puppeteering these people from far away. They could be people whom his father trusted but the probability of them being victims themselves was higher.

Since they were focused on Neil, it was easier for him to run to the bathroom, which would force the others to come at him one at a time. With their backs to the others, Andrew had an easy time stabbing the ones that were outside.

Neil didn't exactly want to, but he was forced to use his powers. He burned whoever tried to touch him and kept lighting their clothes on fire while Andrew stabbed them to kill. Soon enough there were six bleeding, dead bodies on the ground, all of them with at least one charred body parts and/or clothing.

Neil was panting a little bit when he came out of the bathroom. Nicky had wide eyes, staring at the death in front of him as if he'd never seen a dead person before. Aaron seems to be doing better than Nicky, but he was pinching his nose and breathing through his mouth—probably so he won't have to deal with the thick smell of so much blood pooling on the ground or the nice smell of roasting flesh.

Kevin was the most interesting of the three, though. He was looking at Neil with a calculating expression, clearly trying to figure Neil out.

"So," Nicky said in a trembling voice, looking at Andrew as he put his knives back into sheaths on his armbands. "I guess we are going to tip the cleaning service really well."

Neil glared at him briefly. "I think we should change motels."

"Indeed." Andrew was also giving Neil a calculated look, but his was colder and dispassionate. "I guess you’re expecting that I or Aaron will carry the bodies to…”

"Do you know how to disassemble a smoke detector?" Neil interrupted him, not bothering to mask his irritation. Andrew stayed silent for a few seconds and then nodded. "Good. Do it."

While Andrew was doing that, Neil started to pile the bodies one on top of the other. Aaron suggested he should look into their pockets just to see what they could find. Neil ignored him. He didn't need to find anything, and he wouldn't keep anything found on them either. His father probably would be able to track it somehow.

No. It was safer just to burn them.

When Andrew told him he’d finished dismantling the smoke detector, Neil rubbed his hands together and then opened his palms in the direction of the bodies. No flames left his palms, but the bodies did lit up with a sudden swoosh.

Nicky gasped in surprise, but no one said anything, which was a small relief. They could all feel the temperature around them rising a little bit, but not to uncomfortable levels.

If Neil's fire behaved like normal fire, it would be trying to escape, eating away at everything on its path. But this fire was his, so only the bodies burned, so quickly that in less than half an hour there was a neat pile of bones and ashes left, and the pools of dried blood on the cream-colored carpet. Neil used one of the many plastic bags they'd been keeping their food in to store the ashes and the bones that hadn't crumpled under his touch, using his hands to get most of the ashes in the bag. Nicky gagged while he watched, but nobody paid attention as he ran to the bathroom.

When he was done, Neil turned to Kevin and said, "Get rid of the blood."

Kevin didn't even bother with scowling at being ordered around. He was still looking at Neil oddly, but at least he was doing what he was told. Kevin said a few words and the blood started to levitate away from the carpet, being dumped on the toilet that Nicky had just unoccupied and flushed away.

Neil looked at all of them in silence, and they looked back at him. They hadn't had enough time to properly rest, especially Andrew and Aaron. They wouldn't be able to fly very long without resting their tired bodies. However, since something had obviously given them away, it would be unwise to just head to a new motel.

Nicky was giving a sour face by the time Neil said, "I think we should sleep outside from now on."

"I agree," Andrew said. Nicky's face got even sourer. "What are you going to do with the ashes?"

"Drop them into different bodies of water," Neil answered.

"Why?" Aaron asked, at the same time Kevin said, "They're obviously not vampires—"

"Let's go do that, then." Andrew gave Neil a calculating look. "Kevin, you are in charge of protecting our stuff here while we're gone."

"That's a bad idea, Andrew..."

"Cool," Andrew said, walking towards the window. "Did not ask, though."

And he jumped.

Neil followed him. They were only on the second floor, so they landed safely. Their room’s window didn't face the highway which had been the only good part of it. They walked until it was safe enough for Andrew to transform and Neil had a tight grip on the plastic bag as he climbed on Andrew's back. He was… different than Aaron, broader, stiffer and warmer, somehow, but his dragon energy was also much louder than Aaron's. Neil could easily ignore Aaron's, but Andrew's? Impossible. His dragon was clearly mad and wanted Neil to know it. Neil took a deep breath, knowing he’d have to control himself not to soothe or try to talk back to that energy. Andrew would probably hate that.

On air, Neil left his mind overwork itself with worry. He wasn't worried about getting thoughtful, logical answers to his hows and whys, so Neil knew he wasn't doing anything productive. It was simply that he still had some leftover adrenaline from the fight that had nowhere to go, so to his brain monologue it went.

Andrew didn't say a word when he turned back to human after they landed near a small river. He didn't say a word when Neil got handfuls of ashes and started to dump them in, being careful to watch it flow away before dumping more.

They went back on air and Andrew carried them to a lake this time. He waited until the bag was empty and Neil was no longer busy to raise his eyebrows at Neil, saying, "I am waiting."

"For what?"

"For an explanation to why you did not tell us you were an elementarist." Andrew crossed his arms. "If you don't lie, I won't have to threaten you with my knives. You do not seem to like them very much."

Neil thought about that for a few seconds and decided to not correct Andrew at all. "You knew there were people after me. I said that to you. If I were to use my powers, the chances of being found would increase. Fire elementarists are rare enough. "

"Yes, but you should've at least told us about your power," Andrew let his head incline a little bit, and Neil's hands started to sweat a little bit. "You are powerful."

It wasn't a question, but Neil still said, "Yes."

“You have incredible control over your powers.”

Neil shrugged.

"And still you need to hire protection to reach wherever you need to."

"Didn't you see that there were six people in there against one of me?"

"I also saw you not killing them, just hurting them." Andrew gave one single step closer to Neil, who almost stepped back before he remembered about the lake. "What's that about?"

"They just wanted to abduct me, not kill me."

"They don't want to kill you, but someone does want you." Andrew's voice got lower, and the hair on Neil's neck started to rise. Andrew's dragon was insistent with his focus on Neil. "Who is it?"

Neil was sure that Andrew had a sixth sense to the answer already, and only wanted to see Neil confirm it.

Neil weighted the dangers of revealing at least this small truth and didn’t find them very heavy. That’s the only reason why he said, "My father."

"What is your father?" What, not Who. Neil swallowed nothing, thought about it, and decided to tell a simple half-truth.

"A murderer. A criminal."

"Why is he after you?"

Neil shrugged again. "My mother never told me before we ran away." Which was true. She told him _after,_ as in _five-hundred years after._

"How long ago was it?"

Neil took a deep breath before saying, "A long time ago. I was a child back then."

"Where is your mother right now?"

"Dead. He wounded her and she did not survive."

It spoke volumes about his father's powers that he was able to kill Neil's mother, even when she was in possession of her immortality. Technically, he could do the same to Neil, but he wouldn't. He needed Neil alive. At least for a short amount of time.

Neil, unfortunately, seemed to want to process the happening on that motel bedroom by reviving what happened to his mother. It was basically the same stuff after all, so it wasn't surprising that he would relive it.

The smell of human flesh burning was enough to bring it all back, even if this time there was no smell of leather burning. On his mother's burning, Neil hadn't been as emotionally stable to be able to do a neat job, and he put the furniture around them on fire too.

Later, he discovered they’d been found by their magical telephones. His father had made sure to gloat about that the only time he'd come close enough to Neil in the flesh.

Telephones had been a brand new invention for normal humans but magical creatures had been turning random objects into communication devices for a long time. Neil and his mom had made sure to buy one after so long of being totally incommunicado, and it blew it for them. It was no surprise Neil didn't trust technology nowadays.

The detour of thinking about technology rather than death meant that Neil was able to hear Andrew when he asked, "And why is your father really after you?"

Neil tried not to freeze. "I said that my mother never told me."

"And you are lying." Andrew took another step towards Neil, and they were almost nose to nose. Neil was able to see that Andrew's amber eyes actually had little specks of dark brown near the pupils. It was mesmerizing.

"I'm not lying." Neil tried to say, but Andrew seemed to have had enough. One of his hands grabbed the back of Neil's neck strongly. Andrew squeezed, just a tiny bit, and the blood on Neil's carotid artery pulsed wildly against his fingers.

"Yes, you are." Andrew's voice was so low it was almost a whisper. "And if your lies end up being the reason for anyone getting hurt on this little dream trip of yours, I will make you regret it."

"You are supposed to be protecting me, not threatening me."

"I can multitask." Andrew squeezed once more, firmly, and then let Neil go. "Do not forget it."

Neil snarled at him, quietly, but didn't say anything back. It's not like he could blame Andrew for trying to look after his people. After all, there is a big chance that one of them is going to get hurt because of him.

Neil tries to kill the guilt that wants to settle in his stomach, but it was hard.

Suddenly, he thought about Machiavelli. Mercenary armies were only motivated by money, were loyal to themselves and didn't have high morale, let alone a good fighting performance. Neil thought back to that motel room and how the others had fought.

He took a deep breath and looked at Andrew's retreating back, starting to follow him with careful steps. He had to remind himself that he was no prince—let alone a proper god. Machiavelli’s bits of advice were technically useless to him.

Besides, Neil didn't want to retrieve or conquest a kingdom. He wanted to die and for that, he needed Andrew's and the other's protection. Even if it was only in numbers.

Their trip back was extremely silent. The others were ready to fly when they arrive. Aaron and Andrew took them flying to the few sparse trees enough miles away from the motel, and they settled there. Andrew took first watch alongside Kevin, even though he looked ready to keel over. Neil, Aaron, and Nicky took their respective sleeping bag and tried to get comfortable on the slightly damp, cool soil. Nicky kept a constant grumbling going, but he stopped once Andrew started to twirl a pair of knives on both hands and was quick to fall asleep.

Soon, they were all sleeping. Neil hoped that they were all aware of the fact that, going forward, therefore be no more motel rooms for them, as long as he could fight them about it. It was a liability that Neil would not allow any more.

* * *

Wymack decided to get into contact with them in the next morning.

It was a weird experience because Neil had never seen a party balloon being used as a communication device. Still, they woke up in the morning looking up at a blue sky with a tiny orange balloon floating above them, and Nicky gasped while pointing at it.

Neil was lost but Kevin, also looking up, quickly used a few words that seemed to paralyze the balloon, then made it slowly descend.

Aaron seemed mildly interested in what was happening but Andrew didn’t even bother to stop searching for his pack of cigarettes.

“Took you bozos long enough to fucking wake up,” the balloon said, with Wymack’s voice coming out of… somewhere on it. The balloon had a tiny face that was comical, especially when it tried its best to match the movements of Wymack’s speech. “I’ve been waiting for hours!”

“We had an interesting evening. Blame Neil,” Kevin said, making Neil scowl at him.

“I’d never blame a client, you fuckwit,” Wymack answered, and then kept going. “But I had some interesting visitors to the Fox Security building a few hours ago, asking about someone who matches your description, Neil.”

All of them gathered around closer to the balloon, except Neil. He wished he could say it was a surprise, but it wasn't. His paranoia was keeping a constant monologue on the back of his mind about everything he could’ve done to better hide, and everything he could do going forward. It was mostly nonsense plans, so he ignored it.

Wymack’s next words did a better job at shutting his paranoia up, though. “They were Japanese men, wanting to hire someone to find you, Neil. They were from the Moriyama family. You know them, Neil?”

Kevin froze at the same time that Neil said, confusedly, “No, I don’t know them.”

“Interesting,” Wymack hummed. “Well, I just thought I should inform you about this. Do any of you have anything to report?”

Nicky started to tell about the attack from yesterday, mostly making it seem much more exciting than it had been. He did make it clear that Neil was the one who did most of the fighting, even if Andrew had been the one to do the killing, but he didn’t get to go much further than that in his storytelling.

“Tell me that you _dumbfucks_ didn’t let a client on a PROTECTION DETAIL fight for himself.” The following silence was enough to answer to Wymack, and his balloon started to inflate a little. The tiny drawn expression had gotten additional thick eyebrows that made it look angry. “I will SUSPEND all of you when you get back. This is THE MOST absurd dumb shit you've done in a while. I am ASTOUNDED by your collective stupidity. I hope you are aware that I’m going to make you give back part of your payment to Neil as a—”

Wymack’s voice was cut suddenly with a loud pop. The balloon had inflated too much, and it exploded, sending little bits of itself everyone, one hitting Kevin on his face and staying there for a couple of seconds until Kevin shook his head, annoyed.

“Well,” Nicky said, putting his hands on his hips. “That definitely didn’t sound like good news.”

Neil shook his head and started to pack his things. All of the others followed suit, but Kevin was now stealing quick looks at Neil with an even weirder expression than before. It was like he wanted to ask at least a dozen questions, but without an audience—which was impossible, since Andrew left no one alone with Neil anymore.

In the end, Neil kind of got used to being stared at. They decided to risk the possibility of two dragons being seen rather than having to go through the entire day just waiting for it to be dark enough. It was so early in the morning that they would probably be okay, so they gathered all of their things and were airborne in seconds.

* * *

The next few days of the trip found all of them on edge, but no more attacks nor surprise party balloons with bad news happened to them.

They were almost near the coast of United States, fuck if Neil knew what state it was though. He'd been basically waiting until it was dark enough for them to fly to point a direction to Andrew and then they'd fly in a straight line.

Nicky did inform them the same trip that could be made in a car in hours instead of days in a grumpy, mumbled voice.

“But we're still and here, making it on dragonback, only flying at night,” Nicky complained louder when he was ignored. “It’s absolutely ridiculous,” He said and seemed even more frustrated with himself when he put his hand in his pockets, probably looking for his phone, and not finding it.

Neil could sort of see his point, but honestly? He didn't care. He’s paying enough money for Nicky to just suck it up.

“You could just give me back my money and go back,” Neil told him, which shut him up quick enough.

Neil was aware that there was a holiday approaching just because Nicky wouldn't shut up about it. Halloween had changed tremendously in Neil's lifetime, and it would continue to do so until the end of mankind, but Nicky's insisted on wallowing over missing it for one single year (something to do with a rare eclipse right on the same fateful night??). It was bewildering, especially considering that he wasn't missing it _for free_.

Neil was getting acquainted with the way Nicky operated, however, and simply letting the young man be grumpy for as long as he could was the best course of action. It didn't help that the last stops they’d made had them resting as far away from civilization as possible. Nicky was probably feeling deprived of good socialization, since no one in their group was particularly good at it, or cared to engage with him.

But this was gonna be the last stop they'd be doing for a while. After all, Aaron and Andrew would have to be well-rested to reach the coast of Ilha do Corvo, which would require at least three days in the air without many opportunities for rest. When they reached the island, Neil would have to decide if they would keep going through Africa or through Europe.

The point they should be concerned about though was the fact that Aaron and Andrew would fly without stopping to rest—or eat. They'd probably have to sacrifice a few days in the island in order for them to properly recover from this too.

Neil tried not to get too uncomfortable with the amount of time they’d be wasting for resting, time that could mean them losing their advantage on this little cat and rat game. It was harder to not ask them to force themselves especially since he remembered how older dragons standards of flying. If you couldn't stay at least a week in the air without food you couldn't call yourself a dragon. But modern nests of dragons had shifted much closer to humans and the costumes, so their flying time got shorter. Some of them even grew smaller.

Neil tried not to worry about that, though. He had more interesting things to think about, like their dwindling supplies. They'd have to stock up before crossing the Atlantic.

So they went grocery shopping.

Nicky grumbly informed they were on Maine, though Neil didn't care which state it was. Their grocery shopping would've been chaotic no matter the state they were.

It was a big chain of supermarket or something, Neil didn't care to remember the proper names of stores, however, he had to force himself not to smile at Nicky and Kevin kept fighting over what they were going to buy (junk food vs. healthy food). Aaron walked away from them on the first chance he saw and seized, and Neil awkwardly went alone to look at the fruit stands after their bickering stopped being amusing.

Even knowing that it would be stupid to buy all the fruits he wanted since they’d probably get rotten before he could finish them, Neil was left with staring wistfully at them. He chose to get some bananas to eat just today and kept walking.

He had seen Andrew going alone to the candy aisle, even though he wouldn’t be eating during the transatlantic trip. He was probably stocking up for when they landed, or just interested in stuffing his face before flying. Maybe even both.

“Candy is bad for you,” Neil called out to him after getting to the candy aisle, but Andrew simply ignored him, walking away with his basket full to the brim.

Neil followed him and found Kevin and Andrew there, apparently on locked on a staredown. Andrew, with his plastic basket full of candies and Kevin who started to loudly complain about it.

And right behind them, a man appeared suddenly.

Staring.

At Andrew.

“Hey,” Neil said as he approached them, trying not to stare back at the man. “You're being watched.”

Both Andrew and Kevin sort of freeze a little bit, but it was almost imperceptible. Without saying a word, they went to the next aisle, but Andrew hid and tried to take a little peek out the corner surreptitiously.

Again, it was almost imperceptible how his shoulders stiffened. But Neil saw it.

“He's not after any of you,” Andrew said, turning towards them again and choosing a random cashier. “Let's go.”

“Are any of us in danger?” Neil asked while Kevin spluttered that they hadn't bought enough food.

“No. None of you are,” Andrew said but still let them go in front of him to pay. Not long after, Nicky and Aaron appeared and Andrew let them cut in line too.

The cashier loudly said how much Kevin had to pay, but Neil was more worried about staring at Andrew.

“What about you?” Neil whispered, loud enough for only them to hear. Nicky and Aaron frowned at him, but Andrew spared Neil only a few seconds of his stare before pointedly turning away.

After paying, they went out of the store to find the man already there, empty-handed and staring again. Andrew pretended he was not there, even as the guy said “A.J.” in his direction when they passed by him.

Andrew didn't even spare him a glance. They kept walking in line. Neil didn't need to be close to him to know he dealt with something fiery inside but proximity had let him know that the guy's energy was similar to Andrew and Aaron.

A dragon, then. That was… interesting.

“Who's that?” Nicky asked when they were out of earshot.

There was a moment of silence. Aaron was trying to not look at any of them but it was clear that he wanted to know the answer too. The moment of silence stretched, until Neil said, “Nobody.”

And no one protested.

* * *

They spent the day hiding in a park in the town, Andrew and Aaron had stuffed their faces with fast food they bought on their way there, while the rest ate theirs at a more sedated pace.

Not long after, Aaron and Andrew fell asleep first and the first watch was Kevin's responsibility (and Nicky, who fell asleep quickly even while saying that he was going to stay up to the see the eclipse but nobody bothered to wake him up).

Neil just couldn't seem to follow them into slumber, though. They had decided earlier that they would start the long flight after midnight. After a long time had passed, long enough that the sky had darkened, Neil looked at his watch and sighed. It was currently after seven p.m., so it wasn't like it was going to make a difference to fall asleep now.

Kevin woke Andrew up to trade watches. Neil waited until Kevin was asleep and snoring before getting up and sitting on the ground beside the log that Andrew was sitting.

They watched the sky quietly. Or rather, Andrew watched the sky and Neil watched him. The eclipse that Nicky had been blabbing about apparently happening, and Andrew wanted to pay attention to it rather than chastised Neil about his staring problem.

Neil could only see part of his profile but Andrew's face still had the same bored expression as usual.

Neil reached for one of his bags and got a banana out, peeling it slowly.

“So,” Neil said after biting into the fruit. Andrew glanced quickly at him, then to the banana, then back to the sky. “Who was that guy?”

There was no reply.

“You did a neat language thing back there,” Neil continued after a while, mimicking Nicky’s intonation, trying to be annoying. “You made it clear that he was not a threat to any of us, but you subtly didn't include yourself.”

Andrew reached into his pocket and Neil for a second thought he was going to pull a knife on him. But he actually got out a pack of cigarettes.

Neil extended one hand and Andrew didn't say anything when he deposited one cigarette in it.

“Am I supposed to think you're clever just because you noticed that?” Andrew lit up his cigarette and blew his smoke up at that sky. Neil wanted to laugh because it was a little funny to see a dragon blowing up his smoke so mundanely. Andrew probably could make smoke animals, but didn't. Probably because he was not interested. “Because you're not.”

Neil shrugged. “You're just trying to change the subject.”

“Not exactly. You refuse to tell me anything truthful about yourself.” Andrew turned to Neil and blew his smoke towards his face. “Why should I?”

Neil wanted to argue that he did tell a truth on the night of the attack, but he couldn't. It had been such an insignificant truth, and what he was asking of Andrew seemed much bigger in comparison. Andrew just kept staring at him though, with a considering expression.

“We could play a game,” Andrew said, still with the same considering expression.

“What game?”

“A truth for a truth.”

Neil's heart started to race. He turned his face to watch the sky, even though he didn't bother to actually pay attention to the moon. Anything to not show how dangerous it would be to accept Andrew's game.

When he stopped to actually think about it, which one of them had more to lose? Andrew's truths would die with Neil in… a month? Two months? And Andrew knowing a truth or two about Neil would mean what, in the big picture? Neil was old. He had many truths to share.

That was basically the reason why he decided to share the story of how his mother had stolen an important artifact from his father and then ran. It was half-truths and half-lies at best, but Neil tried to actively use more truths.

Another possible reason for why Neil decided to share one truth was just because of how interesting Andrew was. Could be because they were both fire creatures, but maybe not. Neil felt something as Andrew watched him talk. The full weight of his attention made Neil feel… seen, even though he didn't bother to actually look back at Andrew. Neil knew, though, that he was being acknowledged in a way he hadn't been in a long time. Like he was actually somebody alive and breathing. Not just a runner, half there and half-coiled to sprint.

It was an addicting rush for someone who had forgotten what that felt like.

So he told Andrew about how his father had been after them to get the artifact back, even though Neil didn't have it anymore. The first thing his mother did when she found his father's immortality was to hide it. His father had been hanging around for so long thanks to his contract with a Japanese family—as long as there was a member of the family still alive, he would only be able to go as far as they let him, do only what they commanded him to do.

His mother once had been given the mission of discovering which family it was so that they could be all killed and his father could be freed.

The people who wanted Neil's mother to search for it were gods too, ones who missed Neil's father's cruelty around them. That was how they learned that his father had not advertised the loss of his immortality (yet. He'd do it later).

However, it was with that search that they found that, at one point, one of the descendants changed surnames. A woman, being married into another family. That had happened in the fourth century, so they had pretty much given up on any chance of finding her again. Neil's mother hadn't been sad about that, but those gods didn't seem to notice that.

Of course, Neil didn't tell Andrew any part of that story.

Andrew was quiet after Neil had finished. He kicked a small rock away from them and, together, they went back to watching the sky.

“I don't think he's after you to get his artifact back,” Andrew said, in a voice so low that Neil had to strain to hear it. “I think that at this point he will do anything just to hurt you.”

Neil gave a humorless smile. “Yeah.”

“Also, he probably knows you don't have the artifact.” Neil hummed in reply, but Andrew didn't offer any more thoughts.

Neil thought it must have been close to midnight already. Neil turned and could see Andrew's expression when Andrew said, “That man used to be my brother, my nest brother. His name is Drake.”

Neil huffed at the name. A dragon named _Drake._ Then his brain caught up and he frowned. “I thought that Aaron was your…?”

“He is my twin. But while Aaron stayed with his mother, I was sent to the foster system as a baby. When I started to present signs of being a dragon, I was sent only to specialized homes.” Andrew’s fingers fished a new cigarette out of his pack, but this time Neil didn't ask for one. “Drake's mother was the last one that offered to house me, and after it, I was being locked up in juvie.”

Neil raised his eyebrows. He had minimal contact with human society, especially human laws, but he knew about juvies. When Neil opened his mouth to ask why he was sent to juvie, Andrew lit up his lighter right in Neil's face with a sudden movement, and he was obviously using his powers to make the flames dance higher than usual.

“You only get to ask a question if you offer a truth.”

Neil nodded slowly. Andrew didn't seem to want to tone down the fire, so Neil only looked at it briefly and it went away.

Andrew wordless put his lighter back in his pocket, turned his back to Neil and finished his cigarette silently.

Neil took that as the obvious sign it was and left Andrew alone, carrying his bag of fruits back with him to his sleeping bag, fruitlessly trying to catch at least some minutes of sleep.

He failed. Andrew's words kept going through his mind.

* * *

When all of them were up and had finished packing, Neil felt the wave of uncertainty flowing through them for a few seconds.

It's not like flying overseas was impossible for dragons, even those who were half-humans. But you did hear about dragons who disappeared without a trace, probably drowned in the ocean after losing consciousness on air.

It would be a test of endurance for Andrew and Aaron. If they had had time to train on land how to fly long distances without resting, without eating like their ancestors, they'd probably be more confident. But they hadn't.

Of course, Neil wouldn't let them fall if they did lose consciousness. If Aaron energy started to flag, Neil knew he'd be able to keep feeding him his own energy, small amounts of it, just enough to help but not enough to be noticeable. If it was Andrew… he'd be fucked. There was no way Andrew wouldn't know it.

He didn't think it was safe to tell them he could do it though.

After a bit of awkward standing around, Aaron and Andrew transformed, and everybody climbed their respective dragons. Nicky, for once, was blessedly quiet on the first day. It didn't last long, he was being his usual parrot in the afternoon but it was a strained kind of word-vomiting.

It made sense to be nervous. It didn’t take long on that first day for them to get bored of the ocean, especially with the sun shining on all that water and making them almost blind despite Kevin's enchanted glasses.

They also smelled terrible and were sticky from sweating under the unforgiving sun. Neil had tried to cover his skin as much as he could to protect from the sun and not give it away that he didn’t burn at all under it but sweat was inevitable. Nicky kept trying to make lewd comments and Neil kept ignoring him.

Eating, sleeping and peeing in a bottle so that they could empty it with more control and not accidentally throw piss on Aaron was basically their routine. Kevin at least had the advantage of being on Andrew alone, but he also had to be careful not to slip when sleeping. Neil and Nicky took turns on who was doing what, and Nicky especially needed that, with how twitchy he was.

Everything was going fine. By the time the last day had arrived, Neil could feel Andrew and Aaron dragging a little bit—Aaron much more than Andrew. Neil kept subtly feeding them both his energy, but the system wasn’t perfect.

As exemplified in the last day of the trip, when they were almost getting to the coast, according to their calculations. Neil had fallen asleep so it was understandable that it happened. Aaron was too exhausted to keep flying without any new energy being fed to him and Neil woke up to Nicky’s terrified screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, this was a bit of a monster-sized chapter. The others are even bigger in their draft, so lmao i pity all of you who decide to come back.
> 
> again, i thrive on comments. Please, tell me your favorite letter of the alphabet and why.
> 
> also, thank you for reading!!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somebody gets possessed twice, they arrive to the African continent safely but then someone finds them. Oh-oh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third chapter has been ready since yesterday but I feel asleep while doing the last proof-reading lmao
> 
> I had an incredibly terrible week and you have no idea how surprised i am that i was able to edit this lol
> 
> hope you guys enjoy it! Buckle up because this is even longer than the last one, sorry

Neil woke up from his nap quite disoriented. Aaron had been flagging down a little in the last few hours and Neil had been worried when he fell asleep but he'd thought he could nap for half an hour at least. Nicky was supposed to wake him up much earlier than this failed, judging by the position of the moon. 

It was dark, which was the reason why Neil decided to at least take a short nap. Without the sun boosting his power, it took a lot out of him to share bits of his energy to two giant dragons. Neil had finally fallen asleep after the sun stopped being right on top of their heads and he could barely keep himself awake. But with Nicky and now Kevin screaming, Neil was startled into awakened, looked down, and reacted on instinct to the sight of the sea so near.

If he'd stopped to think about it, he would've noticed how it was such a Bad Idea. But in the heat of the moment, Neil simply took control of Aaron's body with his powers and kept them on air.

The screaming stopped once the others realized that the worst seemed to have sort of passed.

Nicky said, "What just happened, Aaron?", but obviously not expecting and not getting any replies. Aaron had lost consciousness, so not even Neil would be able to get any kind of answers out of him. 

Neil could reply to Nicky but talking was a little bit too much for him right now. They had such a small stretch of sea to fly, and then they'd be in the Corvo Island. They'd find a place to hide, recover their energies and everything would be fine.

So he held up the fort, steadily ignoring Nicky's feeble attempts at small talk and just focused on controlling the giant body, something he was severely out of practice. When people still needed Neil, he'd do this sort of work much more regularly, but the last time he'd even fed someone his energy was when his mother… 

Neil shook himself out of his thoughts when Aaron's body started to waver a bit, trying to keep the emotional response to those memories away, at least for now. 

It helped that he could finally feel Aaron coming back to himself when they were close enough to see the coastline of the island. Andrew and Neil took forty minutes of flying to get on top of the island. They flew high, as high as Andrew could go on such a state, just so that they could find somewhere safe to land while still trying to avoid being spotted by anyone still already awake, even though it was probably around three in the morning.

 _What the fuck's happening_ , Aaron asked himself in a very sluggish manner.

 _You lost consciousness_ , Neil explained. _We were going to fall into the ocean and I took control of your body. Sorry._

Neil had access to Aaron's primary reactions to this tidbit of information—firstly he felt a very strong but short feeling of shame, followed closely by anger. The "How Dare You" vibes were coming strong until Neil showed him his own memories of what had happened, and then Aaron was back at feeling a little bit ashamed. He also didn't want to say the words "thank you", but Neil knew Aaron felt somewhat grateful for it when he started to imagine where they'd be right now if Neil hadn't taken over his body. 

Probably in the middle of the ocean, with Andrew trying to make sure that Aaron didn't sink.

 _How can you do this, though?_ , Aaron asked, after a moment of silence. _Weren't you just an elementarist?_

 _Well, I am that_ , Neil said, and then thought hard about what to say next. In the end, it wouldn't matter what he shared because Aaron would tell Andrew exactly what had happened. Neil was fucked either way _. I have… a few other powers related to fire. It's a rare ability._

Aaron didn't answer—well, not in words but he was stuck in his own bubble of thoughts for a while. They were landing and Aaron was apparently considering trying to ask Neil if he could have his body back now that the worst part was basically over. After a quick self-assessment though, Aaron answered his own unasked question by seeing he was still too tired to land smoothly. So Aaron kept running a constant stream of unworded worry until Neil was able to safely land them.

With them solidly on the ground, Neil gave Aaron his body back and suddenly opened his own eyes, getting a little bit disoriented with how much smaller he was.

Concentrating on the weather helped… kind of. From being such a fire creature, Neil was finely attuned to rainy weather but he definitely didn't need that ability at that moment to know rain was fast approaching. He only needed to have eyes to see the dark, almost black clouds gathering up above them—clouds he missed when he'd been above and concentrating on controlling Aaron's body. 

It took Neil a few seconds to reconnect with himself but at least he hadn't missed that much time in the real world. Small blessings for someone who was about to face an angry dragon. 

Nicky dismounted Aaron a lot more gracefully than Neil. They got the backpacks off of Aaron and then he was changing back into a human, and he would've fallen on his face if Nicky hadn't caught him.

"Couldn't you give me more energy?" Aaron said to Neil, annoyed.

"That's not how it works,” Neil answered, and started to unpack Aaron's previously prepared immediate snacks, including that colorful drink that Kevin had kept cool for them.

"That's not how what works?" Kevin asked as he approached them. Andrew was a step or so behind him, not looking anywhere near as obliterated as Aaron but still panting hard as he drank his colorful drink with gusto.

Before Neil could warn Aaron to not just spill his secrets quite yet, Aaron said, "Neil made me his muppet up there when we were about to fall."

Right after Aaron said the word "muppet", Andrew's eyes got stuck on Neil and did not budge. Neil tried to not let his uneasiness show through, while also subtly shifting into a fighting stance.

"What?" asked Nicky with eyes comically wide.

"I mean, I can't explain it," Aaron continued, unaware of the climate he was stirring around him. "But I totally lost my consciousness up there and Neil just… took over my body."

"That's…" Kevin said, brows furrowed. A few seconds later he gasped.

"Wow," Nicky completed for Kevin, ignoring Kevin's wide eyes but still looking at Neil with bewilderment. "How does that—"

"Did you consent?" Andrew interrupted him in a low voice.

"What?" Aaron asked from his stop on the ground.

"Did he asked for your permission before he controlled you?" Andrew elaborated, sounding annoyed and deadly at the same time.

The silence that fell over them was deafening. "Uh," Aaron looked at Neil like he was finally considering what a dumb idea it had been to open his mouth. "We were about to fall and sink into the ocean? Also, I was unconscious?"

"So, no," Andrew clarified.

"No."

Andrew moved fast, but Kevin apparently had been anticipating something of the sort, because he blocked Andrew's path before he could reach Neil. Neil, for safety, took many steps back, looking around for possible escape routes and finding none for the impossible stretch of flat land until the lake, many meters away. Their scruffle became a little bit more serious when Neil noticed that Andrew had a pair of glistening knives in each hand and he actually used it to cut a shallow cut on Kevin's stomach, probably as a scare tactic that wasn't working.

"Hey, Andrew, hey, stop!" Nicky said, still holding Aaron up but extending a placating hand towards Andrew that would do literally nothing to stop him.

"Andrew, he saved our lives!" Aaron added. "There was no way he could've asked me if he could do it! When he woke up, I was already passed out."

Andrew suddenly stopped trying to get past Kevin, stumbling a bit before falling down on his ass. His anger-fueled burst of energy had obviously left him and, from his face, Neil would guess he was also seeing some black spots. 

"That doesn't make it right,” Andrew argued between ground teeth, swaying a bit as he tried to not flatten himself on the ground.

"Maybe not, but it was an emergency." Aaron looked like he was trying to hold himself up without relying on Nicky but he was unsuccessful. "Also, it was me he controlled! I get to decide if it's worth getting mad over it and I'm saying it's not."

"I made you a promise," Andrew hissed.

"And how does your promise involve Neil?" Aaron hissed back, eyes flashing. “Neil is not a—”

Aaron shut his mouth with a click and glared at Andrew, who had suddenly paused. Neil still looked around for paths he could run just in case the consideration on Andrew's face was fake and he was actually going to try to attack again. Kevin still had his arms spread, breathing heavily but still ready to throw himself in front of Andrew again.

Right on time, a lightning bolt squirreled away at the sky with a rumble of thunder following it not that long after. Nicky flinched, but the others were still locked in their staring contest. 

Aaron finally sat down on the ground after he got tired of trying to stand up but he kept his gaze on Andrew's sitting form.

"We are going to talk about it," Andrew told Neil with a low voice and wild eyes. "And you're going to tell me some truths."

Neil nodded but made sure to tell him, “Only if you tell me some truths as well,” as he looked from Andrew to Aaron. Andrew's jaw went visibly rigid but he gave a careful nod. 

Kevin finally turned around to look at Neil He scrutinized him with his wide eyes, whatever he was thinking about making his eyes even wider. Kevin looked like someone who was having a revelation.

By the way he kept staring and Neil's hair and eyes, Neil didn't think it was a good revelation for him. Actually, for the second time in less than a week, Neil felt acknowledged, seen.

This time, however, he thought it was because his identity had been discovered. 

* * *

It started to rain not long after and they gathered all of their shit around as Kevin started to conjure up a whole fucking tent that was disguised as a cave from the outside. It was a dumb idea to disguise it because there'd been no visible caves on Corvo Island near where they landed, and Aaron had informed Kevin of this, but at the end of the day, probably no one was going to come out in this rain so they were safe-ish. 

Aaron had to be helped up from the ground by Nicky because his legs simply didn't have enough strength to support his body weight, while Andrew refused Kevin's offering hand with a heartfelt glare. 

The atmosphere was... heavy, to say the least. They were organizing who was going to sleep where—or at least, Nicky seemed to be trying to organize it, while Aaron stuffed his mouth with Cheetos, Andrew stuffed his with chocolate and Kevin started to approach Neil, still with a weird look upon his face.

"I know who you are," Kevin whispered bluntly.

Neil stopped trying to make sense of what food he still had in his backpack and looked at Kevin, trying to show the least amount of nervousness. 

The problem with someone approaching him saying "I know who you are" was that Neil had had lots of different impersonations throughout the eras, before and after he started running. Kevin was, by Nicky's constant stream of gossip, a self-proclaimed history nerd. If he knew about the right kind of deity, the right kind of mythology, shit, maybe if he had access to the right paintings for all that Neil knew, that statement could be incredibly true.

A rarer prospect was if Kevin knew him because Neil was so similar in appearances to his father. But that one was a wild possibility and couldn't possibly be the correct one. Right? 

Apparently, Neil's luck really had reached its end, because Kevin said, "You are the Butcher's son."

Neil tried not to react visibly afraid, even though he very much was.

"Who is that?" Neil said, trying to act a little coy. From the look at Kevin's face, it didn't work at all.

"The Butcher is the pet god from the Moriyama family." Kevin whisper, and... whoa. That was new information to Neil. Especially because that name brought Wymack to his mind again, and now the message of that balloon was suddenly much more dangerous than Neil had thought at first because it implied that… that his father’s master knew _about_ _him_. They knew what he looked like and were searching for _him_.

Right now, Neil had to play it as cool as he could. If he let himself descent to the whole rabbit mentality his panic wanted him to, Neil would be screwed.

"Wow, I'm the son of a god to you? That's flattering." Kevin gave Neil a staredown that was extremely weak, compared to the many fixed glares Neil had received from Andrew in the last twenty minutes. "But seriously: what makes you say I'm this guy's son?"

“Well, first of all, you’re the spit version of him, but smaller. It took me a while to realize why you looked so familiar but the puppeteer thing and the fire element reminded me of something. Your father was always blabbering about someone who looked like that, like _you,_ even though he was very good at keeping Lord Moriyama in the dark about it.”

“But now it seems like that has changed, huh?” Neil said with a bitter voice. Kevin gulped what seemed to be some nerves, but not enough to normalize his expressions. Kevin sat down near Neil, uncomfortably close. Neil looked at him and slowly lifted something his fingers had found in his bag—a cookie package, apparently—, noisily opening and eating it. 

“I’m running away from the Moriyamas,” Kevin confessed and that was enough to make Neil stop chewing. “I grew up with them and was used to the point where I almost reached the death of my magic until I was able to get away.”

Kevin started to unconsciously wrangle his hands, probably to feel his still living magic flowing through his arms. Neil could see where this was going: Kevin was clearly terrified of the Moriyamas, whomever they were (probably incredibly powerful people if they were able to keep his father on a leash for such a long time). It made sense for Kevin to be nervous about meeting them again, especially in a scenario where they might interact—or even worse, fight.

“So… basically, you want to know how close to the Moriyama you might get, huh?” Neil said to him, still unable to get rid of the bitterness in his voice. Kevin didn’t vocalize an answer, but his posture did it loud enough for him. “Don’t worry. I’m not planning on getting anywhere near them if I can help it. And your job here is to get me to—my destination. If luck is on our side, we'll not cross paths with them at all. Also, you won't be with me through the entirety of my journey. They'll probably wait until I'm vulnerably alone and then… well. I'll deal with them.”

“And ‘deal with them’ means you're going to fight on your own when the Moriyamas finally find you?” Andrew’s voice makes Neil jump in surprise, but apparently, Kevin had seen him approaching and not said anything. 

Neil sighed before turning to face Andrew, not without noticing Aaron and Nicky watching from afar—Aaron looking disinterestedly interested and Nicky looking very nervous.

“I was actually planning to hire whatever martial art fighters or bodyguard I could find to protect me while I'm there,” Neil answered. “But then I remember that I paid a pretty penny for a good ride and some cannon fodder and I got worried about my savings.”

Andrew just looked at Neil’s ironic smirk with his general apathetic face. After an almost sigh, Andrew said, “Both of you have something to share with the class?”

“Is this that role-playing that Nicky blabbers about?” Neil said in a loud whisper in Kevin's general direction before he could even open his mouth. “This feels like it could be role-playing.”

“I want to punch you.”

“A common feeling when dealing with me, or so I’ve heard.”

It was funny to Neil how Andrew could maintain his external expression unaffected and aloof but Neil could still feel his dragon stirring in an answer to Andrew's actual mood. Kevin, on the other hand, had stopped looking so fucking scared about the prospect of maybe meeting up again with the Moriyamas and was instead looking at Neil like he was a fucking idiot.

It was almost as if Kevin had no idea what Neil was the god of. Or… well. The biggest thing Neil was associated with. 

Neil decided it was probably time to stop goading Andrew into a fight though, so he said, “Kevin wanted to explain some aspects of the Moriyama situation for me, that’s all.”

Andrew looked at Kevin for confirmation but he didn’t seem particularly convinced when Kevin nodded accordingly. After a few heartbeats, Andrew went back to staring at Neil.

“We will talk later,” he said, and then put a lot of emphasis on his final word, “ _Alone_.”

He left them there and went back to trying to extinguish his own candy's supply and Kevin slowly turned to Neil and said, “You’re the dumbest person I’ve ever met.”

“And I’m not even actually a person.” Neil didn’t even try to hold back his grin.

* * *

The rain didn’t seem to want to end.

Their supplies were dwindling again and Neil was working very hard on not getting stressed about the fact that, at any time, they could be found and Neil would have to fight in the _rain_ , which was doable but so taxing on his magic. 

So, yeah, Neil was working hard on his anxious worries, trying his best at keeping them inside and mostly failing spectacularly.

At the end of the second day, Andrew was finally able to get Neil alone for that aforethreatened talk. All the others had gone to sleep but Neil once again was being plagued by insomnia. 

A pebble hit Neil's cheek, then another hit the tip of his nose, and he decided to stop putting their talk off. Getting up, Neil approached Andrew with minimal noise, enough to alert him of his presence and sat down beside him. 

Andrew kept looking at the open flaps of the tent, even though there was nothing for him to see other than the torrential rain, which helped him ignore Neil. Neil, obviously, saw no reason to just throw himself at the pot to be boiled, so he waited for Andrew to speak up. It took at least twenty minutes of silent posturing on both of their parts.

“You can control dragons,” Andrew stated oh so matter-of-factly.

“Yes.”

“Just dragons?”

“Is that the question you want to waste your truth on?”

Andrew didn’t answer, so Neil hesitated for only a moment before accepting that yes, that was what Andrew wanted to waste his truth on. “No, not just dragons.”

“Fire creatures in general, I assume.”

“Mostly.” Neil shrugged. He started to play with his on fingers just in order to be able to do anything.

“Is that why you were considering only Boyd and—”

“It’s my turn, isn’t it? In the truth game?” Neil interrupted him, and Andrew clicked his mouth shut audibly. Neil could feel Andrew’s dragon rearranging himself in order to be able to grumble at Neil grumpily.

“So? Take it.”

“I’m thinking.”

Andrew scoffed, and Neil assumed he did so because he doubted Neil's thinking capabilities. Neil realized he should’ve used his time better during this forced camping thing to come up with questions for Andrew instead of worrying so much they'd be found but oh well. 

After a few seconds of thinking though, he could only come up with one thing that he was confident Andrew wouldn't absolutely despise him for asking. 

Well. If Neil was going to have to give up some close-to-his-heart truths, Andrew would have to answer on the same level. “A while back, you said that Aaron got to stay with his mother while you were sent to the foster system.”

“Yes.”

“Could you elaborate on that?”

“What is there to elaborate?” Andrew tapped on single fingernail against a tiny rock, making a small, subtle countdown that was barely audible before he was able to settle on an answer. “Tilda was a fucked up human woman who didn’t think she could afford to raise twins. So she gave up both of them, regretted it soon after and went back for just one.”

“I meant for you to elaborate on your time on the foster system.”

Andrew slowly turned his body so he could glare a little at Neil. Neil didn’t bother to look back at him, just kept watching the rain instead. After a few seconds of silence, Andrew said, “I went through three normal houses and eleven dragon nests before I was able to send myself to juvie.”

“How were the nests?”

Neil thought he wasn’t going to receive an answer, but after clicking his jaw threateningly, Andrew said, “Terrible”, and nothing more.

A tiny leaf came flying through the flaps and stopped near Neil's feet. He moved enough to get it from the ground and started to twirl it around. Neil didn’t want to speculate, but he also didn’t think he would be able to just outright ask how Andrew’s experiences in those homes went. It would be a much bigger truth, also probably a hurtful one. Neil was aware that if he started to abuse this given liberty and be mean about his questions, Andrew would pay back in the same coin.

Neil felt an overwhelming desire to be sincere with Andrew. It was a weird feeling, especially considering how long it had been since he’d practiced sincerity towards someone else. However, Andrew was five feet of interesting with a sprinkle of mother hen syndrome—it had been a long time since Neil let himself get interested by someone, human or otherwise.

He tried not to think about how much it sounded like he wanted, at his core, to tell parts of his story before he no longer was able to. Neil didn’t want to think about how he was suppressing the fact that he would be dead very soon. He didn’t want to link his interest in Andrew to his vague (but nearing) future death plan.

Neil was too distracted by his own head so he heard that Andrew had spoken to him, but didn’t hear the words. “Sorry, can you repeat it?”

“I asked what else can you control other than fire creatures?”

“Worried about your cousin and Kevin?” Neil let a small, humorless laugh as Andrew didn’t say anything back to him, just waited for his answer. “Well. You need to understand that taking over someone else is… complicated. When they are in a coma or passed out, like your brother, there’s much less resistance to it. But if I try hard enough, I can get the control of anyone’s mind, at least for a little bit.”

It was dangerous information to just give out like this. All kinds of dangerous things could come out of someone knowing you could basically treat people’s body like a borrowed car—just get in and start driving. 

Andrew was quiet for a moment, digesting it, and then he said, “It sounds like you’re a demon.”

Neil actually laughed at that, even though he almost forgot to do it silently so he wouldn't wake the others. When he tallied the powers he'd shown in front of Andrew, there were no doubts why he'd think Neil was a demon, especially when taking into the current religious image of one. “It could be called possession too. But don’t worry. I don’t really control someone else’s body that often. It’s an emergency kind of deal.”

Not only because it ate away at the core of his energy, but also because he was vulnerable during the whole ordeal. Controlling someone was a two-way street. Neil basically opens his way up to someone’s mind at the same time that he gives them the opportunity to reach into his own. 

Of course, there were few mortals alive who could stand sharing a body with so many memories for, like, more than five seconds. It wasn't worth it to let someone auto-sabotage themselves like that, even if Neil was on the run. It wasn’t a pretty way to die.

“Let’s make a deal,” Andrew said.

“Another one?” Neil frowned. 

“You will not possess anybody on this trip anymore,” Andrew said or more like he demanded. Neil frowned harder.

“And in exchange…?” Neil asked.

Andrew shrugged, and Neil interpreted that as him saying that Neil should come up with something that he wanted. However, Neil had more pressing matters with Andrew’s request.

“I can’t promise that,” Neil shook his head at the way Andrew’s jaw tightened. “I can promise you that I won’t control any of your people outside of an emergency like what happened to Aaron a few days, but just denying to control anyone ever is dangerous.”

Andrew thought that over, jaw still tense and dragon almost boiling to the plane of reality. Neil felt the dragon roar and Andrew shuddered. 

“Fine, that works for me.” Andrew took a cigarette out of his pocket, and before he could take out his lighter, Neil evoked a tiny flame on his index finger. Andrew looked at it for a few seconds and then leaned in. “Decide what you want in exchange.”

“I’ve already decided.” Neil moved a strand of hair that had decided to fall in his eyes. Andrew just blew some smoke at Neil’s face, probably because he took two seconds to move his hair and Andrew didn’t get his answer when he asked for them. “I want you to tell me a fairy tale every night.”

“A fairy tale,” Andrew echoed, his hand sort of hovering with the cigarette nowhere near his mouth.

“Yes.” Neil stole Andrew’s cigarette for a drag and quickly offered it back since Andrew was starting to glare at him. “I don’t know if you know this, but not controlling someone is a constant effort.” Neil made his voice sound pained and miserable. “I always need to keep myself in check, allowing everybody around me to maintain their individuality. It’s daily hard work. I think that asking for a daily fairy tale is a worthy exchange. It doesn’t need to be origi—”

“Alright, shut up, I don’t care,” Andrew interrupted him. Neil knew Andrew hadn't taken his pity party as a sincere thing, even though it kind of threaded the line between possible emotional manipulation and mirth, because otherwise, Andrew wouldn’t have said, “It’s a deal, then.”

“Okay, I’m ready.” Neil shifted to a more comfortable position and looked at Andrew expectantly.

“For what?”

“For my fairy tale.”

Andrew gazed at Neil for a few seconds while he took a drag of his cigarette, probably trying to gauge how serious Neil was, and then he released the smoke through his nose in what should only be described as “someone trying to disguise a sigh”. 

“Once upon a time,” Andrew said, mockingly. “A boy lived in a very tiny house, with other tiny children and two very tall, but also angry adults.

“This boy learned how to be as angry as the two adults, and the other children were useful too at the task of fuelling his rage. They would pick on him, beat him up until he was trained to be horrible back. Then the angry adults would be forced to pass him onto other angry adults, and these ones would pass him to another pair of angry adults, and so forth.

“One day, the boy discovered that he had a little monster inside him. This discovery was done after one of the adults, the one that asked the boy to “Please call me daddy”, wanted the boy to do something he didn’t want to. The monster inside the boy made sure that the adult knew he couldn't force the boy to do anything by burning his house down. The adult survived even though he was badly burned. 

“The boy was not blamed at the end because no one had known about his monster and couldn't expect him to be able to control it, but he was punished by being sent to a different house, full of children with monsters inside of them too, just like him.

“Suddenly, the boy had to learn that although the monster was powerful, sometimes other monsters were even more powerful. He kept going from monster house to monster house, meeting adults that had a different kind of monster, until he was placed in the least populated monster house he'd even been sent to. 

“In that house, there was a gentle woman, even though she had the monster too, and the boy was confused by how she could hold so much goodness in her heart even with the monster inside. Until he realized that her evilness must have been passed over to her son. 

“The son had two monsters inside him—both were monsters that the boy was familiar with. The boy was unable to use his own monster to show the son the same message that he’d so effectively shown to the other adults, because what if it made the woman upset with him? 

“But the boy was patient. He waited, and waited, until the perfect opportunity to teach a different kind of lesson to the son made itself available.”

“What was the lesson?” Neil asked.

“That you don’t rely on monsters to do your evil deeds. That monsters are still perfectly capable of bleeding.” Andrew took the last drag of what was left of his cigarette, and then he flicked the still lit butt of it onto the wet ground outside the tent. “And that you don't let your victims survive long enough to make you regret not killing them. The end.”

Andrew got up and went after Aaron to wake him up for his turn on the watch. Neil got up too and, as he brushed the speckles of dirt from his pants, he wondered if Andrew was trying to alert him of something.

Probably. However, Andrew would soon be aware that Neil needed things to be as clear as possible, otherwise, he would find a way to be dumb about it.

Also, he'd probably learn that Neil never had any interest in crossing Andrew's path. At all. 

Nevertheless, Neil would make an effort to remind himself to never force Andrew’s hands on anything. It didn’t look like it would bode well for anyone involved.

* * *

The next day, the sky finally cleared and they were able to go out. It was a good thing that the weather was better, even though there were still some big gray clouds hiding the sun away from them: their supplies had gotten extremely low. Andrew had grumpily teared up the empty plastic wrappers that were what had been left of his candy supply and a few hours earlier they'd eaten their last canned food (Andrew munched his portion while staring at Nicky, Neil, and Aaron, looking discreetly vicious because they still had a few assorted candies and he didn't; Kevin had scoffed at them but didn't even bother offering his protein bar to Andrew).

Nicky complained about how gross he was feeling from lack of showering as they were taking down their camp. Kevin wrinkled his nose but didn’t tell Nicky to shut up, which meant that he probably agreed with Nicky’s sentiment. 

Neither Aaron nor Andrew offered their input. They didn’t smell too terrible, thanks to their dragon skins protecting them against the sun much more effectively than human flesh. They only had three days of being holed up in a tent to blame their stinkiness on. 

It was nice how Nicky started to refuse to chat a lot in the short trip they decided to take to the island's village so they could buy a few supplies, enough to get them to the continent. If Nicky was talking, he was breathing, and if he was breathing, he was smelling the terrible smell his own body and also the others, so he kept himself almost completely quiet. It was amazing. 

Andrew and Aaron were deemed the most presentable ones to go interact with people. Kevin, Neil, and Nicky stood a few meters away from the tiny shop they'd found, trying not to look too suspicious. Andrew and Aaron came back carrying back more stuff than Neil thought they were going to and try didn't stay for too long in the island after that. 

Neil pointed towards where they should head towards and Andrew and Aaron took flight, flying for longer than they had done in the United States. They flew straight to Morocco, Andrew and Aaron stuffing their faces before falling asleep in the tiny hotel Nicky had subtly gotten for them. As soon as they could, they were up in the air again. 

The advantage of traveling through Africa, even if some of them stuck out like a sore thumb, was that seeing a dragon flying through the skies was not uncommon. Neil felt like he could finally relax a little and try not to think about the future—or Andrew Minyard too hard. 

Incredibly, the second one was more challenging. 

The problem was that since Andrew had been keeping his promise of telling Neil a fairy tale after he woke up from his comas, Neil ended up learning a lot about Andrew thanks to his allegories, metaphors, and wordplays. 

Sometimes it felt like cheating their truth game, but they still did that. They were guarded with their truths, Andrew much more obviously than Neil, but the fairy tales were… magical. Andrew had a real talent at storytelling, even the ones where Neil knew were actual fairy tales instead of tidbits of Andrew's life. 

It didn't make any _sense_ though, especially for someone who guarded themselves as fiercely as Andrew did. Neil had no fucking clue why Andrew shared anything with him outside of his truth game when he wasn't even gaining anything. Sometimes he'd caught Andrew giving him a look, whenever Neil shared something that resonated through their silence, and Andrew's gaze would hold such a deep level of _empathy_ that felt like a rare thing to get out of him… Neil had no protections for it. He was hooked and would lose as many hours of sleep as he could trying to understand why—why Neil, why now, why _anything_. 

However, he didn't have long to enjoy his tentative relaxedness: three days after they left Morocco, as they were descending into a giant savanna near Lake Chad, they got into another problem. 

Neil and his mom had passed through Africa briefly but still not discreetly enough—Neil's father had been able to find them on their second night. So even though Neil had been trying to be a little positive about how well everything seemed to be going, he could feel that there was some trouble brewing. 

What was surprising though was that it wasn't any of Neil's father's people, technically. 

It was a Moriyama.

They were flying lower than usual thanks to the how they'd foolishly lower their guards with the normality of flying dragons and their blessed anonymity. Neil and Nicky almost fell out of Aaron's back when something hit one of his massive wings. They were unstable for a while but Aaron was able to get his balance back pretty quickly until he was attacked again—this time, he was paralyzed by a suspension spell of some sort. 

They started to drop like dead weight. Nicky screamed right at Neil's ear and Kevin shouted something to them, his words being eaten away by the wind. Neil hoped that Andrew would understand that this was an emergency when, for the second time on this trip, he took control of Aaron's body, destroying then suspension spell far away from Aaron's mind. 

Whoever they were seemed surprised to find someone who could resist them. Neil felt a lick of their power tasting _him_ and he shuddered. He knew who it was. He'd felt that energy before. 

Neil just didn't have a _name._

Andrew dove soon after, suddenly, not because he was also being controlled but to open his mouth and breathe hell down on two tiny figures on the grass nearby some trees. Neil gave the control back to Aaron so that he could dive after Andrew too.

Before Aaron could join on the attack, Andrew was landing and Kevin didn't dismount him. Neil almost asked why no one was attacking when he looked at Kevin's face and saw how _pale_ he was. Aaron landed right beside Andrew and all of them stared at the two men that were standing in their path, colored in a warm orange glow thanks to the still burning trees. 

Well, technically just one of them was a man, an Asian man that Neil had never seen before. He was dressed in an all black suit with a crimson tie, smiling at Kevin like today was someone's birthday: his. Kevin, Neil noted, seemed too petrified to express anything that could make the man give up his obvious gloating. 

The other creature standing beside the man was someone Neil recognized. Being adored as a god was kind of a small business back in the day, so they tended to remember each other.

Suddenly, Andrew was changing into his human form, without alerting Kevin who fell awkwardly onto the ground. 

“Riko Moriyama,” Andrew said, opening up his arms in an excessively expansive gesture. Neil's heart started to race at the surname. It was a little weird to be so suddenly nervous about a name that days ago didn't mean anything to him but here he was. Could it be that he was finally close enough to the holder of the contract to be able to get rid of his father? “Also the lap god. Sorry, lap dog.”

Neil winced slightly especially since the weather started to respond to the god's mood. 

“Funny as always, Minyard,” the god said, a touch of derisiveness in his voice. “You can't really say that your role is that different from mine.”

“I can leave whenever I want, Jean.” Andrew's cold face split up in a maniac smile that sent chills down Neil's spine. “You, on the other hand, was stupid enough to get yourself bound to a second son who is worth nothing to his family.”

That answered the question of whether it would benefit Neil to kill this Moriyama or not (the answer was that it clearly wasn't worth it).

Riko gave two steps closer to them and Neil decided it was time to get to the ground just in case he needed to help in a fight, but also do it in a way that didn't attract Riko and Jean (a _human name_. All of them apparently had adopted _human names_ ) attention towards him. He was sure that in the middle of a fight they would pay that much attention to someone attacking from afar but during the boring posturing? That was dangerous. 

It was all wasted effort though because as soon as Neil's feet touched the ground Riko’s voice rang loud as if to erase what Andrew had just said. “We've heard you might have a very interesting client with you. Would you mind introducing us?”

Aaron thankfully stayed in dragon form, and his massive body was more than enough to cover Neil.

“C’mon now, Riko, we both know that the clients’ identities have to stay anonymized.” Andrew's voice showed clearly that he was still talking through that same smile from before. “Now why don't you get out of our way so that we won't have to absolutely destroy you both? We have the better odds here, after all.”

Riko clearly was not going to pay attention to Andrew anymore, which was a dangerous move. “Don't make us go after you, little god. Or do you want us to tell your father exactly where you are?” 

Neil stiffened, gritting his teeth. Nicky’s gasp was loud in the following silence and, even without looking back up at him, Neil knew that Nicky was staring at him from his higher point. 

Riko’s laugh broke the silence that had fallen upon them again. “Do you mean to seriously tell me that you didn't know? You have been traveling with a god for weeks without knowing it? And I thought all of you couldn't be any dumber.”

Neil listened to Riko's laughter once again, trying to make a decision with a mind that was spiraling out of control and down into chaos. He didn't want to show his face to them, especially to face Jean after such a long time, but he also knew that it wouldn't do any good to him to stay hidden.

In the end, Aaron chose for him. Without warning Nicky, just like his brother, Aaron transformed into a human and Neil was suddenly exposed to all of them. Neil glared at Aaron, who obviously couldn't care less as he glared back at Neil. He was going to have a chat with Aaron later because he'd just endangered Neil's future chances of surviving greatly. 

“How the mighty have fallen,” Jean said, shaking his head. “You used to be a power to be reckoned.” 

Neil's blood boiled but he kept his control over his expression. “Like Andrew pointed out, I'm still free, _Jean._ ”

Jean opened his mouth to snarl back at Neil but Riko stopped him with a hand on his neck. Jean’s whole body went rigid, but his mouth did close instantly.

“What a pleasure it is to see that you’re still free…?” Riko was obviously waiting to be given a name but Neil simply glared at him. “Very well. Be difficult while you can. I have a proposal for you.”

“I vow to hear and consider your proposal if you tell me how you found us.”

Riko let his head fall to one side, considering Neil’s offer, and then he nodded with his head.

“That’s fair.” He put his hand in his pocket and Neil tensed up, ready to attack whatever Riko could pull out of there, but when he brought back a simple piece of cotton stained with brownish splotches everywhere, Neil frowned. “Your father had been tracking you with your mother’s blood for a few centuries before he was finally able to get to her. You had been _much_ more difficult to find since they were never really able to wound you and get a sample, until London.” Neil’s mind unwillingly flashed back to his stay in London, a few decades after his mother had died. He’d been distracted with mourning her and didn’t see the two black magical hounds approaching him, led by one of his father’s most loyal and immortal follower, Lola. “But you know how tricky it is to use blood to track someone’s who is… decent at masking their trails.”

“You can only get a piece of general information about how close they are to you.”

“Yes. So you can imagine our surprise when the alerts started to go crazy here in Chad, of all the places.” Riko looked around as if rating the place and finding it lacking his consideration.

“Why are you here, though?” Neil asked. “Shouldn’t it be my father then?”

Any trace of cruel enjoyment that Riko had been exhibiting vanished in the blink of an eye.

“Your father is too busy to be bothered by a nobody like you.”

“So he sent a nobody like me to negotiate?”

Kevin flinched hard at that, and Neil wanted to smack him on the back of the neck. Riko flicked a look at Kevin, but he quickly went back to pretending he wasn’t there.

“Be careful, little god. You don’t really know with whom you’re talking—” Riko interrupted himself when he saw Andrew fake yawning at them. Andrew looked back at Riko’s glare with no interest at all. Neil would have to be blind not to see how Andrew’s general insolence riled Riko up.

“You are unbearably insignificant, you winged snake,” Jean hissed at Andrew, but once again Riko needed to just barely touch him to make him shut up.

“He is indeed insignificant and that’s why we don’t need to address him at all,” Riko said to Jean, then turned to Neil with his cruel smile back in place. “My offer is for you to bind yourself to me. I’ll make sure that your father won’t ever get near you, and then you’ll finally be able to stop running.”

“The only thing I’ll have to sacrifice is my everything,” Neil completed, nodding as if that sounded like a good deal. “Yeah… you’re insane if you think that that sounds like something desirable.”

“‘Your everything’. What do you even have to call yours?” Jean sneered at him and, for once, Riko didn’t interrupt him. “You’ve been running for millennia and more to come, barely utilizing your powers, without even a single one of your people’s descendants remembering you ever existed and you _dare_ say that you still have something to lose?”

Neil whistled, a long impressed sound that cut through the air. “Wow, Jean. What did Moriyama use in his binding to make you his bitch so thoroughly?”

That was enough to make Jean lose his temper. The skies had darkened in seconds, and a lightning bolt fell suddenly from the sky right on top of Neil’s head. Nicky’s shriek was piercing, and Neil heard someone else gasping. He thought it must have been Aaron.

Neil knew that all of the humans around them would’ve been blinded by the sudden lightning bolt, so he used his opportunity to advance forward, fast, too fast for Jean to stop him from sucker punching Riko hard enough that he crumpled to the ground like a dead-weight.

Jean tried to hold Riko’s body before it hit the ground but Andrew was as fast as Neil to immobilize him too.

Before Jean could attack them, Neil asked, “What does your binding entail?”

Jean looked at him, his raised hand faltering with confusion. “What?”

“What can I do to set you free?”

Jean'sexpression cleared, but it was quickly turning into mindless fear. The others were carefully circling him, and Jean took a brief second to look at them before speaking back to Neil, voice trembling. “No.”

“No?” Neil said and grabbed Jean by the collar of his shirt. “Are you saying that you prefer to stay a slave? To use a human name, human clothes, as if you weren't wind and electricity turned into flesh?” _Like me_ , Neil thought fiercely and snarled at himself. “I'm offering to try and help you!”

“You _can't_ ,” Jean said, frantically.

“I can always _try_.”

Jean simply shook his head, too afraid to get the help that he clearly needed. Neil gritted his teeth, frustrated. It was a stupid sentimental stunt, this sudden need to try and help an ancient friend who had steep so low but Neil couldn't help himself. He remembered their talks from centuries before and couldn't match up the prideful, elegant, _poised_ god from so many centuries ago to this pitiful shaken creature in front of him. 

They’d always agreed that doing deals with pure humans or other magical creatures wasn’t something bad. But if it came out of ensnaring, capturing and forcing someone to belong to another instead of doing a boon and falling helplessly into loopholes that humans were witty enough to create (like Neil's father and his careless hubris), that was not okay. 

In the past where you could find more immortal creature than nowadays, they tried to help each other out of potentially spending the rest of your incredibly long life being miserable. 

Jean probably had given up on getting help. Neil thought about how he could still become Jean and hated it. Neil looked at him, at how different he was from the person he used to know, and sighed.

“I will not force you to be free.” Neil let Jean go and Andrew reluctantly mimicked him but Jean clearly didn’t feel safe to get up from the ground. “But beware that I’m always an option to get out. If I find a chance to free you, should I take it?”

Jean visibly swallowed and then nodded.

“Are you able to tell me anything useful for why they’re suddenly interested in me?”

“Your father was able to hide your existence for quite some time now, but his current master is… desperate enough to want immortality.”

“Kengo?” Kevin asked, for which Jean nodded. “Why would he want immortality?”

“Lord Moriyama’s health has been deteriorating extremely in the last few months. He asked The Butcher,” Jean glanced at Neil when he grimaced at the name but didn’t stop talking, “Not so long ago if there were any way of delaying his death.”

“And he was forced to reveal that he knew of a wandering god who possessed immortality that could be stolen.”

Jean simply gazed at Neil’s empty smile. It was wonderful to know that, if Neil was found, he would be kept alive just until they were able to get his immortality for themselves. It also made him want to reach the end of this trip ever so slightly more.

“Are you able to tell me how they were actually able to track me?” Neil asked, thinking about Wymack receiving a visit from some Moriyama people right after Neil had been attacked. 

“Magic-webs. From when you burned the bodies. They'd been infused with a spell tracker.”

Neil looked down at his own hands, noticing that he’d clenched them. If they were using magic-webs, that meant they had gotten enough of his magical signature to form a profile that was traceable. The magic webs would start to form around whoever triggered the spell and then slowly spread to the whole world until it reached the original caster, who would be notified of the magic user's location whenever they used their powers.

Neil thought of lightning Andrew's cigarette. That had been the last time he'd used his powers, which would make what Riko said about Lake Chad a lie. They probably had been tailing Neil for a while now and Jean used his powers to get ahead of them. 

Magic webs were an infuriating magical device, but now that Neil knew about it he could get rid of it. He just felt dumb for not noticing it sooner. 

It wouldn’t do any good to beat himself up over that now, though. They were losing enough time on this conversation alone when they could've been gone a long time ago.

Neil briefly looked at the sky before turning back to Jean. “Anything else that could be useful?” Jean slowly shook his head. “Then please take your master and get away.”

“Could you wound me?” Jean asked slowly, knowing that it would make Neil cringe. “I… I need proof. Also a reason for not following you in any way.”

“Of course.” Neil took a deep breath and put his hand on Jean’s forehead. “Don’t forget to take deep breaths.”

Neil thought that the easiest way to believably hurt Jean in a quick manner was to heat up his blood temperature in random spots, causing burns from the inside out. It would be quickly recognizable to Riko if he knew what Neil could do. Jean didn’t flinch during the whole process, even when Nicky quietly gagged at the redden bubbles forming on top of his skin.

When he was done, Jean took a second to pant a little, obviously trying not to touch any of the wounds. He threw an arm over Riko’s laying form, then nodded at Neil. “Farewell, old friend.”

“Farewell.”

And then he was gone, the breeze that was flowing through them the only proof he'd been there.

In the silence that followed, Neil quickly went back to his pack, hastily putting it back on himself and then extinguishing the still burning fire with a snap of his fingers. 

When he was finally ready to turn back and look at them, Andrew was twirling a couple of knives in his hand while Aaron was apparently ranting something at his twin brother in a low voice and being meticulously ignored. Kevin was still staring to the place where Jean had been, and Nicky… 

Nicky was staring right at Neil.

So Neil was not surprised that Nicky cautiously gave a few steps closer to Neil, with an odd expression in his face. “So,” said Nicky, trying to mask the tremor in his voice with a wan smile. “You are the god of what, exactly?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what do you think Neil is the god of? Place your bets in the comments below lmao
> 
> if you find any typos, please tell me about them! 
> 
> thank you for reading :3


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> whereas we still don't know what Neil is the god of but we do kind of know that Neil's future might not be so bleak anymore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so.
> 
> I'm a bit overwhelmed.
> 
> because one of you LITTLE BUGGERS recommended this fic to the aftg library and I'm????? hysterically crying???????
> 
> so thank you for the comments, new readers, if you got here thanks to aftg library. Also, it was a nice reminder that the placeholder absolutely SHITTY summary I wrote needs to be rewritten DEAR LORD WHY DID ANY OF YOU CLICK ON TH—
> 
> it was dragon!Andrew wasn't it? dammit

“Are you the God of Fire?” Nicky asked, breathing hard. 

“No, he's the God of Attracting Trouble,” said Aaron, looking around as if waiting for another attack. 

“He's obviously the God of All The Idiots In The World,” Andrew said with a faint sneer. “Can't you feel it? He is the stupidest of them all.”

Neil knew he would’ve ended up hearing this vitriol for a long time if he gave them any kind of opening, so he sat down on the ground and closed his eyes, getting in touch with his reserve of power that had gone untouched for too long. 

“The fuck he's doing?” Aaron grumbled lowly. “Meditating? _Right now?_ ”

“The stupidest of them all,” Nicky cooed in a pitiful voice.

Neil reached for a big chunk of his powers and it was a heady thing, enough that he felt his eyes fly open without his express order. Nicky's yelp of surprise told Neil that his eyes had changed, probably back to the moving blue flames they used to be when Neil still used his powers a lot. 

However, his own eyes were the least important thing on Neil's mind right at that moment. He could feel and _see_ the thin strings of webs attaching themselves to his chest, to his hands and Neil felt _enraged._ He poured the chunk of his powers down those strings, feeling each place they branched out and became dozens, hundreds of different threads. When Neil found the center of it, all the way in North America (and wasn't it nice to hope that his father was hopefully too far away to find him in the next few minutes). 

It was a delicate thing. 

Neil burned them all down in milliseconds—it was a blink and you'd miss it sort of deal. 

The hardest part was letting his power go back to its resting place instead of coating himself on it, making himself go black from soot and ashes, letting his powers fill each crevice of himself again, so he'd feel _whole—_

But recognizable. Unfortunately, too recognizable. 

Neil blinked for a few seconds before getting up and trying to bring his attention back from the entire Earth to those little noisy fuckers who were still trying to talk to him. 

If he didn’t encourage them to just get back on track with their journey, Neil knew that they'd be fucked. Kevin and Aaron were watching him with twin interested expressions, even though Aaron was a touch more scared than Kevin. He'd probably been able to sense Neil's powers since they had such a similar source and Neil would bet all the money he had on the fact that Aaron had probably been tempted to just _touch Neil_ while he was so close. 

Andrew was the most interesting one, though. His focus lit Neil up, his dragon was so present Neil could _almost_ touch it but on top of it all, Neil could feel Andrew's hunger. Probably for Neil's powers, to coat himself on it, to _worship—_

Neil took a deep breath and held it for forever. Chances were that Andrew wasn't feeling any of that at all. It might be just Neil, projecting. 

The power inside of Neil rebelled against that thought and Neil shuddered. It would be wise to stop teasing the wild side of magic inside of too many people in that place. 

Nicky had his mouth open and was obviously gearing up to start yapping, so Neil acted. 

“How far can you get us in three and a half hours?” Neil asked Andrew, his voice hoarse but still understandable. 

“If we force ourselves and you help with your… powers, we can get far enough,” Andrew answered, still looking at Neil with a tempting intensity. Neil took a deep breath and tore his gaze away from Andrew's. 

“We'll fly for six hours until Mumbai, then.” Nicky opened his mouth—to protest, to question Neil, _whatever—_ but Neil was having none of it. “They might be sending people _right now_ to Chad. I got rid of the magical tracking they put on me but we still need to get _the hell away._ ”

It didn't take long for them to gather all their stuff and go back on the air. 

Of course, Nicky tried to get him to talk on top of Aaron. Neil didn’t have any problem flat out ignoring him, but every time Nicky said Neil’s name and the word god in the same sentence, it made him a little bit nauseous, definitely too queasy. It had been too long since anyone had acknowledged his former… job, so to speak. At the same time that it was a strange relief to be properly acknowledged again, it was also a wreck on Neil’s already fried nerves.

Andrew and Aaron were too tired to fly for too many hours but, with Neil's help, six hours later found them on top of a skyscraper, being surrounded by baffled hotel staff as Neil asked politely for a bedroom at the same time that he worked on their minds so they wouldn't remember any of their faces. 

Neil also gave them a lot of money from his secret stash in his bag. Probably more than the price for a single night but Neil didn't give a fuck as he opened the door for the bedroom they'd been given.

“We could've been staying on high-quality hotel rooms?” Nicky grumbled while Aaron felt to the ground, already snoring. Andrew at least had enough energy to take a quick shower before falling asleep in one of the beds. “Seriously, we could've had the trip of my _dreams_ and we were staying on any filthy place that would accept us and not ask too many questions?”

“It was easier to stay hidden, Nicky,” Neil mumbled, sitting in one of the heavily padded chairs in the room while watching Kevin cross the room to shower. “Also, luxury is overrated.”

“Says _God,_ ” Nicky harrumphed, pouting. “You could've just used your powers to make this journey a tad more pleasant, you could've _created_ a moving house that was _comfortable_ but _no_ , that wasn't a priority—”

Neil sighed. “That’s not how being a god works.”

Nicky gave him a dubious look. “Then how can you call yourself God?”

Neil sighed again, harder. “You make it sound as if I believe I’m the only god in the world. I am _a_ god, a deity if it makes it easier for you. Also, _I_ didn’t choose to call myself a god. A bunch of human people decided to do that.”

“Oh,” Nicky said, and Neil knew that he’d noticed the nostalgic notes in his voice. Nicky could be highly insensible at times but he was also incredibly empathic. “That sounds like an interesting story.”

“Yeah, Neil, please tell us more about how people worshipped you,” Aaron mocked in a grumble, making Neil and Nicky jump as he suddenly got up the ground, unsteady on his feet and walked until he passed out in the second bed. 

“But seriously,” Nicky continued, turning his body towards Neil more fully. “How does the choosing aspect of it actually work?”

Neil could talk about immortality and how not all gods were immortal but most of them found ways to quickly _become_ immortals so they could feed their powers and become more powerful. However, he knew that was too much information to give to someone like Nicky, with no abilities to shut the fuck up. 

So Neil shrugged. “I don’t have a proper answer for you. My father was worshipped before me, the god circle was pretty small and that’s how he met my mother, and then I just… started to receive gifts, offerings, and other stuff when I was a kid.”

Kevin suddenly opened the bathroom door and he crossed his arms while resting his shoulder on the doorframe. “You were also known to not throw temper tantrums, weren’t you?”

Neil squinted at him, wondering where he'd gotten that information. 

“I wouldn’t call what some other people did ‘tantrums’”, Neil said, trying to keep his expression blank, while definitely trying not to think about the horrible things some people he knew had done when they haven't felt “properly worshipped”. “But I definitely tried to be fair to all of them.”

“Wow,” Nicky said, with a breathy voice. “That sounds so cool.”

Neil shifted in his place, trying to hide his discomfort. The times when he'd felt proud of his accomplishments as a god had longed passed, together with a mortal who'd worshipped him. Neil mostly felt detached from all of it when thinking about his other life, before his mother had enraged his father. 

He looked at Andrew and Aaron sleeping forms instead, and not that long later started to search for his sleeping bag. Kevin followed suit but Nicky was still watching Neil with wide eyes. 

“Wow,” Nicky repeated. “But what kind of god is named _Neil_ , though?”

Both Neil and Kevin stopped and look at one another. Staring at Kevin's eyes, Neil knew Kevin suspected which god he had represented before (or maybe even gods if Neil was particularly unlucky). It didn't take long for Kevin to go back to rummaging through their stuff though, leaving Neil with the task of finishing his conversation with Nicky however he wanted. 

“Neil is not the name I was known by when I was worshipped, and no,” Nick's mouth closed with a loud snap at Neil's tone. “You will not ask what my name was. I'm Neil now, and that's what matters.”

Nicky pouted and sat on top of the sleeping bag Neil had thrown at his face. “Can I at least know what you were the god of?” 

Neil crossed his arms, sat down on his own sleeping bag and tried to deflect Nicky’s question. “I did some healing, sometimes. Could never bring someone back to life, but I did sometimes extend the life of those who I thought were worthy. I was asked to bless newborn babies and also to protect anyone who asked for their protection in a hard time. You have to understand that, at that time, there were a lot more creatures roaming around and fewer humans. Today, a lot of them have been killed and humans have populated Earth efficiently.”

“I never thought about it that way,” Kevin butted in again, approaching them and sitting right next to Nicky in front of Neil. “You must have had contact with a lot of magical creatures that are now extinct.”

“I knew you would concentrate on the most boring thing,” Nicky said, tsking at Kevin. “Neil, was it fun? Being a god?”

“It was a lot of responsibility, having so many people relying on me.”

“Must have been pretty difficult, repressing that running instinct of yours,” Andrew commented from the bed, startling all of them. Neil was shocked that both Aaron and Andrew had woken up after falling asleep so quickly, to the point that he thought maybe they'd passed out instead of napped, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that Andrew was lying on the bed, propping himself up on his elbows and looking at Neil with boredom. 

“I didn’t have any reasons to run, yet,” Neil said with a tight smile.

“Huh,” Andrew said, and turned to give them his back. “I find that hard to believe.”

Neil opened his mouth to reply but Aaron cut the somewhat lighter mood with his general downer attitude. “What does the Moriyamas have on you?”

Neil stiffened and slowly turned to look at Aaron’s still relaxed laying body. Neil wanted to throw something at him, maybe even some wisps of fire just to startle him, but he reckoned it would be useless throwing fire to startle a dragon. Also, petty. 

Neil tried to unclench his teeth, to no avail. “The only relation I have with them is the fact that they have my father.”

“As in, in their possession?” Nicky asked, clearly confused.

“Pretty much,” Neil said, shrugging. “He made a deal with an ancestor of the Moriyama. It wasn’t very smart of him. Now he’s essentially stuck with the family for however long the descendants of the ancestor are still alive.”

“Why isn't your English weird?” Nicky asked, at the same time that Aaron asked, “So they want to do the same thing with you.”

Neil gritted his teeth for a couple of seconds while he tried to let himself imagine or accept that what Aaron was suggesting was true, so he turned towards Nicky and answered his harmless curiosity first.

“I visited what today is the United Kingdom when the English language as its know today was starting. After that, I went all over the world and only came to North America at the start of the last century. It was much different from the English I knew but still easy to pick up. Also, Aaron?” Neil waited for Aaron to make any kind of sound of acknowledgment, which he received in the form of a grunt. “You literally saw me learn about the Moriyamas’ existence. I haven't got a fucking clue on what their plans for me are.”

Someone snorted but Neil was too busy glaring at Aaron, who’d suddenly raised his upper body to glare at Neil too.

The rest of the night went a lot better after Aaron stopped opening his mouth. Nicky still had a lot of questions, and Kevin did too, so Aaron had to simply curl up in his bed and try to pretend nobody else existed until he actually fell asleep. It didn't take long for Nicky to start slurring his words a little bit too much and not much longer even Kevin had moved to slump against the wall and try to stay awake enough to complete his watch. 

Neil didn't know when Andrew fell asleep but he only needed to feel for Andrew's dragon to know that he was completely out. 

The silence that reigned made Neil doze off—long enough his brain had time to come up with some sort of nightmare. It wasn’t anything clear, no memories or monsters, or any of Neil’s innumerable bad memories; it was mostly just the bad feeling that something was breathing down on Neil’s neck, following his steps with hungry eyes and Neil had to run, run, run.

Neil woke up when his dream morphed into the sensation of falling from a high place and his muscles had responded to it by making his leg flail a little bit, bringing Neil back to himself. He was gasping as if he was actually tired from running and then falling. Neil closed his eyes and tightened his clammy fingers into fists, willing the bad feelings to go away. 

When he opened his eyes, Andrew was dispassionately watching him trying to get reconnected to his surroundings. It took him a couple of minutes to regulate his breathing, which Neil found to be a little embarrassing. He could run on his legs for hours on end without so much as breathing hard but just by dealing with a simple, sceneless nightmare shot his breathing to Mount Everest and back. It was absolutely ridiculous.

When he stopped looking at his lap, Neil noticed that Andrew had gone back to watching out of the window, with a relaxed frame. Neil got up and went to stand near Andrew, looking back at the morning, almost midday sky, trying to look like he wasn’t somehow hurting from his very uncomfortable nap. 

Neil had no idea how the others were still asleep with the chaotic sounds of a big city and all that sunlight coming through the window. One look at them explained why: all of their faces were turned away from Andrew's open window as if they had already woken up and did what they had to go back to sleep. 

Neil snorted and looked back at Andrew. From his slightly twitchy fingers, Neil would've guessed that Andrew really wanted to smoke right now. There was a sign that said no smoking in bedrooms, which would never stop Andrew. However, Neil had his own priorities. 

“My fairy tale?” Neil asked, which made Andrew turn to stare at him, searching Neil's face for something. It was obvious that Andrew did not want to talk about a fairy tale but their deal needed to be fulfilled. Neil expected to be told a generic fairy tale for disrupting Andrew's peace but no. It was a piece of his life disguised as a story. 

It was a long fairy tale that told the story of an evil princess (and wasn't that an unexpected change of narrative) who was evil enough that the people from her kingdom built a giant tower with no windows or doors and threw the princess in there to be freed of her. 

“How did she eat?” Neil asked, breaking Andrew's concentration which made Andrew frown. “How could she survive there?”

“Magic,” Andrew said and kept telling the story despite Neil's smile. 

The evil princess attracted a dragon to her tower, pretending to be sweet and in distress. The dragon knocked the roof of the tower away and started to visit the princess, who knew she could not escape the tower because people still checked weekly on her (also she wouldn't have magically delivered food anywhere else). Long story short, the dragon fell in love with her, they fucked, the people of the kingdom saw the dragon sneaking out of the tower, told him how evil the princess was and never came back to visit her. 

The princess was pregnant though, and she gave birth to twins. However, she told the people from the kingdom that she only had one kid, so when she was asleep they came and took one baby away, completely unaware that she'd hidden the other one. 

The baby that got away was placed in a house full of people and completely forgotten, while the one that had stayed with the princess grew up to be abused and tormented by the princess who hid him completely from the kingdom people 

When the forgotten baby had grown-up, a fawn told him about his brother in captive. The prince got so enraged he transformed into a dragon like his father and flew towards the tower, finding that it was all true. The captive brother spoke to him only when the evil princess was asleep but it was clear that he had already given up on living free of her influence. But the prince dragon had promised to his captive brother that he would free. 

It was clear that this was the story that explained why Andrew and Aaron barely spoke to one another. By hearing Andrew's story though, Neil was able to see that Aaron _really_ disliked Andrew—also _why_ he did. 

Aaron hadn't believed that Andrew would be able to get him away. The dragon killed the evil princess to free his brother, which obviously meant that Andrew killed his mother. Aaron apparently wasn't that happy with that and insisted on mourning his mother's death which Andrew obviously thought it was distasteful. 

“What is the moral of this story?” Neil asked when they had left the silence reign a little too long after Andrew had finished talking. 

“That sometimes, it doesn't matter how badly the person who takes care of you treats you,” Andrew turned to look outside again. “You can still villainize the person who got you into a better situation.”

Neil looked at a tiny car passing on the street so far away and tried not to think about his own mother. And failed. 

“It doesn't matter how bad or evil your mother is,” Neil caught himself saying in a whisper. “She's your mother and society expects you to love her despite the bad behavior.”

Andrew turned sharply to look at Neil. They gazed into each other's eyes for a moment and Neil waited to see if Andrew was going to question Neil's strangled voice or ask for the full story.

He didn't, so Neil got up and went back to his sleeping bag. 

* * *

When everybody woke up early in the afternoon, they ordered a big lunch that Neil wanted to call superfluous (it _was_ expensive food) but he didn't care. He'd woken up from his nap shrouded in a surreal fog that made everything light for him. 

It didn't take long for Neil to pay for their stay (not with money but with a black card that had Nicky making saucer eyes at him) and then they were on the air, Aaron and Andrew knowing that they were going to Tokyo. Their last stop. 

Nicky had spent the entire trip talking Neil's ear off but for once Neil didn't feel annoyed at him for it. It was the surrealism that still clung to Neil and that didn't bother him at all. He let Nicky speak away, his voice being carried by the wind, the crepuscular lights around them making Neil's vision go hazy.

He didn't even notice much about their last trip, remember sporadically to fill both Andrew and Aaron with enough strength to fly. 

They landed in Japan when the sun was rising (“Sunrise on the sunrise land!” Nicky exclaimed, patting his pockets until he remembered he didn't have his phone) and Neil looked at them before tasking Kevin (and Andrew, because of _course,_ Kevin wouldn't go anywhere alone in fucking Japan) to buy him a laptop with the black card so he could transfer the rest of the money. 

Neil had transcended his ability to care and decided to splurge a lot of money on this last part of the trip, He checked them in on one of the most expensive hotels In Tokyo and paid for an entire week for all of their bedrooms. 

Nicky was almost exploding from excitement. When Andrew and Kevin got back from their excursions, Neil transferred the rest of the money from many different bank accounts, doing the whole process slowly so he wouldn't fuck up, still not entirely comfortable with technology. Andrew received confirmation from Wymack and nodded at Neil and went to sit in one of the beds to ignore their existences. 

Nicky was loudly making plans of visiting places he could see outside of their window. Aaron was by Nicky’s side, loudly complaining about all the places Nicky was pointing to although he seemed to be impressed by the actual view. 

Kevin was watching Neil, though. His creepy stare was heavy, but Neil didn't bother to acknowledge him. Neil was tapping his finger on the keyboard, smashing random letters and just… breathing. 

When Neil got up though, everybody turned to look at him. 

“It's time for me to go,” he said. “Thank you for keeping me alive.”

A heavy silence fell over them as the words were processed. 

“Wait, what?” Nicky sounded shocked. “You're not staying the whole week? Why did you pay for it then?”

Neil wanted to say, “Because I won't have time to spend any money after this”, but actually said, “I might come back in a week. It's just so I'll have a place to stay. You can take advantage of it if you want though.”

“I'm gonna order _everything_ and you're gonna have to pay for it when you come back,” Aaron said, sounding almost gleeful. Neil just shrugged for him, obviously not caring. There was a chance Neil wouldn't come back at all and Neil hoped karma fucked Aaron over _hard._

Neil said goodbye and it didn't pain him at all to part with them. They were… okay people, almost good people, but Neil was already thinking about his next step. 

When he looked at Andrew though, Neil's eyes lingered. He wanted to say _so much_ but was scared to give himself away. The clock was ticking, his candle was running out of wick to burn and Andrew didn't look at him as Neil got out of the room with his measly belongings. 

At the end of it all, it didn't matter that Neil felt like he had so much to say to Andrew. It would only have meaning for a few seconds and then everything would be forgotten, including the feelings he wouldn't name but was definitely going to choke. 

Another thing that didn't matter was the email that Neil had programmed to be sent to Andrew’s Fox Security email in forty-five minutes with all the information for five of Neil's bank accounts, each of them with more than three million dollars in them. 

Neil didn't care that he could've donated that money for a charity or anything like that. He trusted Andrew to do what he thought was right with the money. 

Neil wouldn't have any use for it in his grave. 

* * *

Neil could've used his own powers to get himself to Miyakejima but he decided instead to use a ferry.

Of course, that involved getting the appropriate money to travel inside Japan, the language feeling rusty on his tongue. With enough yen acquired, Neil carefully navigated the subway until he was close enough to the Takeshiba Passenger Ship Terminal, where he'd have a lot of idle time until his ferry departed after 10 p.m.

As he waited, Neil tried to reason with himself why it was easier to do it like this instead of _swimming_ to the island. Not only was he too close to where his father was supposed to be, even if Neil suspected he was actually on the US right now it'd also probably catch _somebody's_ attention that there was a lunatic swimming in the Tokyo Bay Area. 

When the ferry final arrived, Neil found another reason: he liked seeing Japan staying behind and the tiny islands he could see in the six hours of traveling. 

Everything looked _so different_ from when he passed through here with his mother. It was a different mindfuck to see another scenery overlaid the current one, with few things actually matching. 

When Neil arrived at the island, it was five in the morning. There were people living there and a few other passengers had also gotten off with Neil (adventures from the looks of their clothes), but both numbers weren't exactly impressive. 

At the first opportunity he had, Neil got out of sight of any humans and started his track alone towards the volcano, so he could be done with it. Just… get rid of the unpreoccupied fog that had its hold on him. 

So climb he did. It was not even particularly difficult but his heart was pounding all the same. The last time he'd done this climb with his mother at his side, she'd guided him without giving any explanations for what they were doing.

Now his mother was gone, Neil knew _why_ she'd done it but he couldn't keep going with this ridiculous game that she had started. He was going to get his father's immortality from the still active volcano, get the fuck out of the island to a safe place while using his father's immortality as a distraction, find someone to remove his own immortality and then… decide his future. 

Throwing himself naked into the lava was an experience that Neil had no idea he'd been missing, but he had. He had to fight not to use his power to just stir the lava in time with his excitement because Neil would _not_ accidentally cause this volcano to fucking erupt. That would be _dumb_ and _counter-productive._

With that in mind, Neil let himself drift for a long while, just going with the lava flow until he knew he'd been stalling for too long, so he used his memory to swim to the tiny nook where he'd hidden the orb. He had his eyes closed, going by feel along the walls of the volcano until he felt the unnatural chill of the orb's… personal space, sort of, wrapping it in both of his hands. He floated in the lava with it in his hands, just trying to grasp how this tin almost insignificant thing had been such an influence in Neil's life for thousands of years. It got him nostalgic enough that he just spent a long time reliving his entire life basically. 

He felt sorrowful for too much of it. It was a terrible feeling. 

Gently, Neil swan back to the surface, having _just_ a tiny bit of a hard time climbing out of the volcano because he was, 1. Naked, and 2. Holding a slippery cold orb that forced him to climb one-handed. 

Impatient with himself, he swallowed the orb, using enough magic to trap it safely and undigested in his system. With both hands free again, he was able to finish it much quicker. 

When he was finally out he laid there on the ground, admiring the early morning sky—wait. No. It wasn't morning anymore. He'd lost enough notion of time that the sun was actually _setting_.

He breathed for a long moment, eyes closed and unpreoccupied. He did it. And everything went perfectly fine. 

That was when he heard the distinct sound of feet shuffling impatiently on the ground and he opened his eyes to see a gun pointed at him, glinting in the dying light of the sun. 

Neil froze a little bit but raised his body enough to focus on the Japanese man holding the gun. He was dressed like any businessman he'd seen out in Tokyo, harmless and focused on their life. This man was entirely focused but not at all harmless. Especially when considered how this man resembled Riko Moriyama a whole fucking lot. 

“Good evening,” The man said. Neil gulped, sounding too loud to his ears but still not enough to cover the rapid beating of Neil's heart echoing through his mind. 

“Good evening,” Neil echoed mindlessly. 

“I must thank you,” probable-Moriyama continued, approaching Neil with two confident steps. “We were tracking your power signature but finding someone that possessed Minyard's power signature made it much easier to pinpoint where you probably was going to go.”

Neil hoped that however provided Andrew's or Aaron's signatures weren't important for them. If the Moriyamas had gotten the signature forcefully, Neil knew the Moriyamas would bring a lot of trouble to their doors. 

Right at that moment though, Neil couldn't worry about that. 

“Well, I can't say you're welcome because I really didn't want to be found, but also… It's kind of impressive that I tried to not use my powers at all and you still found me.” Neil's voice dripped sarcasm. “Do you want a trophy?” 

“You should have hired someone to disguise you if you didn't want to be found,” Moriyama said, smiling coldly and ignoring Neil's jab. “You are a foreigner in place that doesn't exactly receive that many tourists. All I had to do was to position some of my people in specific locations, like all the terminals in the whole country and there you were.”

Neil felt incredibly stupid with his own carelessness, but it was now too late to commiserate. He knew it had been the fog but he had to decide what he was going to do next and do it fast. Moriyama appeared to be alone for some reason, which just made Neil even more suspicious, however, none of that mattered if Neil would not be able to use his leverage, currently in his throat. 

Did this Moriyama even want his father's immortality? 

“Can I sit up?” Neil asked carefully and did so slowly after Moriyama gave a tiny nod. “If you don't mind me asking, why did you so desperately need me?”

“My father is the one who desperately needs you,” Moriyama said. “He’s on his deathbed, and wants to become immortal.” Neil pretended not to know that, acting suitably surprised. “I don't want him to find you and use you.”

This time, Neil didn't have to pretend to be surprised. 

“You… don't want your father to be cured?” Neil couldn't keep the shock out of his voice. 

“Cured? Yes. Immortal? No.” Moriyama kicked the clothes Neil had discarded before plunging into the volcano closer to him, a silent demand for him to dress up and Neil did it as Moriyama kept talking. “The clan needs to have its administration renovated regularly. There's nothing beneficial from my father keeping his role until the end of how long he might last.”

Neil looked at Moriyama's face, reading the ambition clearly in his eyes, and he also knew that whatever this Moriyama felt for his father did not overpower his hunger to be in charge. 

“And what are you offering?” Neil wanted to know. 

“I want you to give your immortality to me.”

Neil tried not to smile and failed. “It doesn't quite work like that. First, you need to separate an immortal being from his immortality. It needs to be unclaimed for at least thirteen years before it can be transferred to someone else. Also, for that process, you need another immortal being to actually handle to immortality. You wouldn't be able to touch it with your mortal hands. It would absolutely drain your life out of you.”

“Why did our god say that could save my father then?” “Our god” not “your father”. Neil was unbelievable glad but didn't want to show it. 

Moriyama didn't sound disappointed though, just like he was trying to solve a puzzle and finding out that none of his pieces matched. “It sounds like he wouldn't be able to save my father with _your_ immortality.”

Neil shrugged. “I do have healing powers that would still belong to me even without my immortality. Maybe his plan was to keep me healing your father until the thirteen years had passed, and then finish the process.”

 _Or maybe_ , Neil thought, _he planned on getting his immortality back from me, use it on Kengo without explaining where it had come from, separate me from my own immortality and use it for himself._

Moriyama was shaking his head at Neil. “It doesn't matter why he said it differently. What matters is that my father does not become immortal.”

Neil hummed at him but said nothing. It was clear from Moriyama's expression alone that he was trying to come up with a way to keep Neil out of his father's hands. The obvious answer was to kill Neil. Neil would be okay with that since it wouldn't be death by hisfather's hands (bound to be too painful because he'd probably be tortured for a bit) and he'd finally be free but _Neil_ had the leverage here. And the best use of that leverage would be to bargain for his father's future. 

If _his_ _father_ died, Neil wouldn't have to worry about Nathan becoming immortal again.

All Neil had to do was bargain well enough. 

“Do you want to become immortal in his place?” Neil finally asked, which made Moriyama glance at him immediately but not answer until several seconds had passed. 

“Like I said,” Moriyama licked his own lips, suddenly glaring at Neil. “The clan needs to have the administration renovated regularly.”

That… sounded like a no. But it wasn't an _explicit_ no. 

Neil was about to offer his father's immortality to him anyway, just to see if it could tempt him. It wasn't like Moriyama was obliged to be immortal _forever_ —it was somewhat easy to get back to his mortal self if he got fed up with immortality, as long as he knew another immortal being. 

But then Neil felt a giant fucking flame raining down on them, and acted quickly and without thinking to protect Moriyama's life. 

Neil created a pocket that was free from the fire, Moriyama unconsciously clinging to Neil's shirt. They couldn't be burned by the fire but the heat was probably overwhelming for the human. Let alone the fact that their oxygen supply was being used to keep the fire going. 

A few seconds later though, the flame was extinguished and right in front of them a dragon landed, smoke still coming out from that giant panting open mouth, from both nostrils. 

It wasn't any ordinary dragon though. Neil would recognize that fucking flying snake anywhere. He'd been seeing him fly by his side for the last for-fucking-ever. 

“Goddammit, Andrew!” Neil screamed at him, trying not to think what would've happened if he had attacked instead. “What are you _doing_ here?!”

Moriyama had raised his gun to point at the dragon but Neil batted it away with his hand without thinking about it. He could regret his unthoughtfulness or he could just pretend not to care, which was what he ended up doing. 

Neil waited for Andrew to change back to human form, but he didn't. Neil decided to ignore him and get back to Moriyama. “Do you agree that I just saved your life?”

“...Yes.” Moriyama squinted at him, his eyes going cold. “Although it could be argued that you both agreed on this façade.”

“I give you my word that I didn't hire, asked or suggested that Andrew should have _followed me from Tokyo_ like a creep to come here and breathe fire on both of us. I also give you my word that I didn't know he was following me.”

Neil didn't even know if Andrew _had_ followed him, or if he'd put a tracker or him when he wasn't looking or anything like that. Actually, Neil's mind was trying hard to realign itself with the tethers of reality and having a damn difficult time. 

Moriyama nodded slowly at him though, probably aware that old creatures, gods or not, took their oaths seriously. 

“Then yes, I do agree that you saved my life.”

“I would like to be compensated for that.”

Moriyama squinted again at Neil but this time it didn't take long for him to give a tiny smile like this was exactly what he'd expected. 

“How much do you want?”

Neil shook his head. 

“I don't want money. I want your word that you'll not kill me or hire someone to kill me or hire someone to take my immortality from me or detain me in any way, and I also want your word that you will take all the measures within your power that nobody else do any of these things in your place.”

“What if someone, like my father, send someone to kill you without me having any knowledge of it?”

“I didn't have any knowledge that Andrew would try to kill you, but I still stepped in when I noticed what was happening and protected you. If you do anything less than that, you will be obviously dishonorable. You'll have to put your resources to work on protecting me.”

For a few seconds, it looked like Moriyama was about to say no. With a sigh though, Moriyama nodded at Neil and said, “I swear to comply with all of that.”

Neil wanted to feel relief but he couldn't let his guard just yet. He took a deep breath, looked briefly towards Andrew and then made his ultimate offer. 

“I know where there's another immortality that you might be able to hide from your father or use on anybody you want, no waiting required.”

Moriyama squinted at him again. 

“And what will the price for that kind of information be?”

“You will have to free one specific god that is in your family's control right now and use them to help you either dispose of the spare immortality or use it on someone.”

Neil watched as Moriyama silently considered the offer, taking note of every small but meaningful look that Moriyama was darting around their environment. 

“May I know who is currently controlling the god you want to free?”

Neil hesitated for half a second, then said, “Riko, that I know of.”

Neil was so focused on Moriyama that he didn't notice Andrew turning back to human form behind him until he said, “Don't you think you're giving too much information for him to be able to get a fair bargain?”

It was Neil's turn to squint. “Andrew, that's not helpful. Either say something to help or say nothing.”

Andrew raised both of his hands and went to sit down on a nearby rock, cleaning the cinders from his own early temper tantrum off of it.

“So, you want to free Jean.” Moriyama hummed and went back to quietly ruminating on it. Neil's heart was beating loud enough that he was _sure_ both of them could hear it.

This was risky, to say the least, but it was a good thing that Neil made him promise _not_ to kill him before revealing his information. There was also nothing worse that could be done to Jean, probably. Hopefully. So even if Moriyama denied him this, at least he could tell Jean that he tried.

“You're the biggest dumbass around,” Andrew said monotonically, picking at his nails. “Also, incredibly gullible.” 

“Because he's trusting on my word and my word only?” Moriyama asked and seemed ready to keep talking until Neil interrupted him with a short but cutting laugh.

“Oh, don't worry, Andrew. I put a nifty little piece of my magic inside Moriyama when he was standing behind me being protected from your fire.” Moriyama slowly turned to look at Neil, who couldn't help but let out a tiny satisfied smile at the expression on both their faces. “The magic will make sure the oath will be kept and that I'm safe. It's basically impossible to fool a piece of raw magic.”

Neil knew that Moriyama was on the verge of spluttering angrily at him, so Neil swiftly walked away from him just to be sure, approaching Andrew who was giving him an unimpressed look. 

“Do you mind giving me a lift back to the hotel?” 

“Go fuck yourself,” Andrew said, but not like he meant it. In a matter of seconds, he was back in his glorious dragon form and Neil almost took the opportunity to hide from Moriyama a little longer but no. Neil didn't need to do that. For the first time in a long time, he had the upper hand on a negotiation. He was coming out of this on top—better yet, almost _free._

It was exhilarating. 

“If you decide that you do have an interest in the immortality I'm hiding, free Jean and send him after me. He knows how to find me,” Neil looked down at Moriyama from Andrew's back, and Moriyama was looking up at him with cold but clear hatred on his eyes. “Also, I can also cure your father, but I can't make him younger. He will die of health complications later even if I cured him, but if you're interested… Pray for me. I'll answer.”

Then Andrew was airborne, and Neil was being taken far away from his probable last death trap for a little while. 

His disbelieved giggling was robbed away by the wind but Neil didn't care. He was alive and he had found a way to keep himself alive for a little longer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this baby was originally 5k and ended up with 7k after editing IS THIS HELL??? I FEEL LIKE IT'S HELL
> 
> what do you think it's going to happen? Will this Moriyama man pray for Neil? Is Jean gonna be freed? Will I ever learn to reach stuff properly instead of just shrugging and being vague? see more about it next week
> 
> THANKS FOR READING, WARRIORS


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trip is over and also LETS LEARN WHAT NEIL IS THE GOD OF
> 
> ps: it's lame lmao

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> almost didn't get this out on time lmao
> 
> I'm a Mess!

Andrew transformed himself back into human form when they were halfway through their journey back to the hotel. Neil had to ungracefully roll on the roof of the random hotel they were on top of which left him disoriented enough for Andrew to plop himself on top of him, one hand holding both Neil's wrists on the ground above his head. 

He didn't complain about the treatment though. Andrew's mouth was too tight for Neil to try and do anything funny. 

He expected Andrew would ask for more truths about himself. 

He expected Andrew would ask about what Moriyama had said before he arrived. 

Neil expected a lot of things out of Andrew's mouth and got exactly what he never thought he would hear again. 

“Why did I know exactly where you would be?” Andrew asked slowly. Neil's heart skipped a bit and he stiffened. 

Andrew watched all of it and seemed unable to stop himself from baring his teeth. Neil could also feel Andrew's dragon restlessness, like a giant squirming worm on top of him. 

Neil didn't give any answers though. His mind was now even more disoriented and all he could think was, “How? Why? Why _now?_ Why _him_?”

“Well?” Andrew prompted. “Will I need to hurt you in order to make you give me some answers?”

Neil almost said, _You can't hurt me anymore,_ but instead decided to ask, “Weren't we supposed to be playing a game of truth for a truth? You don't need to hurt me to get answers.”

Andrew's eyes burned brighter, their molten color shifting with his clear distaste for Neil in general. 

Neil kept himself quiet. Andrew would either talk or learn that he was unable to hit Neil. The quieter Neil was, the lesser were the chances of this mess being found out. 

“You are… interesting,” Andrew said through clenched teeth. “I didn't notice that you were living inside my brain in an unusual way though until you went away and I could… feel you. Pinpoint exactly where you were moving towards when Nicky opened a map of Japan on his phone.”

Andrew didn't repeat his question but his eyes were full of more than “How did I know where to find you”. It was clear to Neil that Andrew was thinking about his own brother being controlled like a puppet. Andrew would never let himself show fear but his quiet outrage made it obvious that he feared Neil had done something to him. 

That he'd be able to control Andrew as he did with Aaron. 

So Neil decided to start by reassuring Andrew while his scrambled thoughts tried to find a way to explain what Andrew was now. 

“I promise you that I'm not controlling you like I did with Aaron. I didn't break my promise about only using that on an emergency.” Neil felt Andrew relaxing minutely with that, although his grip was still iron-like on Neil's wrists. “I also didn't… alter anything magical in you, or inserted a compass in you that pointed towards me. Well… not _consciously._ ”

Gone was Andrew's minute relaxed frame as his jaw visibly tightened alongside Andrew's grip. Neil couldn't feel the blood rushing towards his hands anymore, just uncomfortable pinpricks running through them. 

“ _Explain_ ,” Andrew growled. 

“You know I'm a god,” Neil said softly and then cleared his throat so he would speak louder. He would not whisper this explanation, not when it was the first time he would be able to do it since… forever, or that's what it felt like. “Before I go forward with the explanation, I want you to know that I did _nothing_ to choose you for it. Magic can be intentional but wild magic has a mind of its own. I swear to you that if I thought this would happen, I wouldn't have chosen any of you for… The last time this happened I was still being worshipped so it wasn't a big—”

“Fucking _spit it o—_ ”

“You're my priest,” Neil said hurriedly, feeling his own face twist with his lack of tact while Andrew stared at him with a severe frown. “Like I said, I didn't choose you. Becoming a priest should be a choice, a gift freely given and cherished. I forgot how my first priest came to exist and that he hadn't exactly chosen to be it but he also didn't resent it. It did make him richer and live longer. I mean, dragons already had a long life span and he wasn't a dragon he was… well, it doesn't matter what he was but honestly I—”

Andrew stood up so suddenly that Neil stopped talking just so he could be confused. His brain eventually caught up and Neil raised his torso to rest on his elbows, looking at Andrew's shaky shoulders as he marched from one side of the roof to the other.

At least five minutes passed before Andrew turned to him and snarled, “Take it out.”

“What?” Neil asked, frowning. 

“Take. The wild magic.” Andrew stalked towards Neil, his eyes slightly wide and his breath sort of short. “Out. Of. Me.”

“I can't,” Neil said lowly, trying not to let his pity show. “I don't control it.”

“ _I don't want to be your fucking priest._ ”

“You don't have to,” Neil said getting up slowly and trying to approach Andrew. He stopped when Andrew's body fell in a fighting stance. “Andrew. I would never force you to do something you don't want to. The magic wouldn't either. If you don't want to protect me or be near me, the magic won't force you to do it.”

“Why did it let me know where you were, then?”

“Because a priest has a connection to his god, no matter how distant they are.” Neil tried to step closer to Andrew again and this time Andrew didn't seem like he was ready to punch Neil. “If we stay apart though, the connection would cease existing.”

“How long?”

Neil grimaced. “At least a decade.”

“That's too long. I want it fucking gone _now._ ”

Neil gulped and thought about what he was hiding inside himself. His father's immortality currently didn't belong to anyone, technically, but… Moriyama could claim it. 

However, this wasn't the only immortality in the world. 

“If you became immortal or a god yourself the connection would be severed,” Neil told Andrew, heart on his mouth. “That's the only other way I know to stop it.”

Andrew gave him a hard look. “We're going to talk about this later. Also about the extra money,” he said and then growled as he transformed into a dragon; his clothes glowed as the magic enveloped him in bright light, his limbs growing longer and darker until he was the same dark dragon that Neil was used to seeing by his side, bright orange eyes giving Neil a clearly disgusted look. 

Neil realized with a jolt that this was the first time he actually paid attention to what Andrew looked like while he changed. 

It felt like Neil's long last apathy towards seeing the details in the world was finally lifting. 

Was it because he had used his powers more in the last month or so? Or was it because he was finally on his way towards freedom? 

Or was it because of wild magic trying to heal him? Or was it because it was trying to make Andrew help him heal? 

Neil knew he wouldn't get answers right now. He also knew that Andrew would come back to ask him more stuff about this priest business and how to get rid of that responsibility. 

A jolt went through Neil when he realized he would have to tell him what he was the god of. 

With a tremor, Neil climbed on Andrew's large back, trying not to grin at how Andrew didn't lower himself to make it easier for him and thinking about his new future. 

His possible future. 

It was beyond exhilarating trying to get rid of his readiness to die and be free now that he was much closer to another way of achieving freedom. 

* * *

They got back to their hotel and this time, Andrew waited to transform back into human form _after_ Neil had gotten off his back. 

The elevator ride to the room was quiet but it was a strained sort of silence. Nicky cheered when the door opened and Neil walked through it, Aaron wrinkled his nose but didn't comment and Kevin's green eyes glowed with confusion and apprehension. 

He'd probably guessed that Neil would try and sort out his life with the Moriyama but, judging from his clear dumbfoundedness, Kevin didn't expect Neil to come back at all. 

Nicky only pestered Neil for a couple of minutes before he looked at Andrew and stiffened while shutting up. 

It took a few hours for Jean to appear in their hotel room and Neil spent that time trying to mask how overwhelmed he was in front of an oblivious Nicky, an uninterested Aaron, and a too-interested Kevin. Nicky rambled for hours about all the stuff that he wanted to do in Tokyo's lively night-time, always looking towards an apathetic Andrew to confirm if they'd be allowed to do it, getting more and more buzzed with the lack of protests. 

When Jean materialized in the middle of the bedroom, Nicky’s squeal was loud and caught everybody's attention. Kevin and Aaron fumbled into a fighting position but Andrew kept himself sprawled over the obviously uncomfortable wooden chair, looking at Neil without moving a muscle. 

Andrew kind of flinched a little when Jean knelt in front of Neil but Neil was the only one to notice. Neil was soon distracted by Jean going even lower on the ground in front of him, making Neil grimace. The exaggerated gratitude grated on Neil's nerves a little. 

“Thank you,” Jean said, voice muffled from speaking so close to the ground. “I’ll owe you for all my life debt. Thank you for freeing me.”

Aaron and Kevin awkwardly lowered their hands and Nicky was watching them with confusion plain in his eyes. “Is that what you did yesterday, Neil? Went out to free him?” 

“It wasn't my plan when I went out but a chance appeared and I took it.” Jean made himself go even lower, and his face was probably being mushed against the carpet. “Get up, Jean. I think you have a message for me.”

Neil wanted to say that he also had an idea of what Jean could do to pay his debts but he kept his mouth shut. He'd first listen to Jean and see if there was anything remotely close to a trap, then he'd try to make the plan that had started to form in the back of his mind happen. 

Jean slowly sat on top of his still kneeling legs but at least he wasn't so obviously licking Neil's metaphorical boots. 

“Ichirou Moriyama freed me,” Jean started and licked his lips, his expression taking a sudden turn to nervousness, almost apprehension. “And he told me, ‘Tell that little nobody to get rid of the immortality he possesses. I want nothing to do with it.’”

Neil shook his head. “That was not what we'd agreed upon.”

Jean wrung his hands and avoided looking at Neil. “It is what he told me though.”

“Well, whisper a message to him by wind,” Neil said and watched Jean being confused until he remembered he could use his powers freely again. “Tell him, what he looks for can be found on the last resting place of a goddess in a western North American beach’. It should be enough.”

Jean nodded and muttered to himself, his magic making the air crackle. It didn't take long for him to be done but Neil didn't notice—too lost in his own thoughts. 

Neil could understand that Moriyama didn't want to deal with the dangers of immortality but Neil also hoped that he would be smart enough to use this information to make his people search up and down along the West Coast. 

So Neil let his nodding be the only answer Jean got for a few seconds longer and then Neil clapped his hands suddenly, trying not to grin at how many of them actually jumped at the sound. 

“My old friend,” Neil told Jean and patted the bed next to him. He waited until Jean was gingerly situated by his side to continue. “I need to ask a favor of you.”

Jean nodded eagerly, all his attention focused on Neil. The others in the room were not bothering to mask how much more attentive they'd gotten as well but Neil worked to ignored them and succeeded. 

“I want my father dead.” There were audible inhales throughout the whole room but Neil kept going. “I'm not saying that I want _you_ to be the one to kill him. If you know someone that could do it, that would satisfy me. I just need him to not exist to torment me in the future.” 

Jean was shaking his head but Neil knew he wasn't exactly refusing to help him. Jean's freedom was almost as new as Neil's, and this was probably something that he thought could threaten his freedom, too soon after he acquired it. 

“He's powerful and immortal.” Jean ran his fingers through his hair and gave Neil a pair of frustrated, pitiful eyes. “Nobody in their right minds would accept it.”

“Powerful? Yes. Immortal? Not quite.” Neil smiled at Jean's obvious shock when Neil… vomited back the cold orb that had a small but frightening snowstorm going on inside. Nicky said a tiny “ _Ew_ ”. “Unless the Moriyamas had a god that gave his immortality to my father, my mother and I made sure a long time ago that he was vulnerable in the best kind of way. We thought he would've been attacked early on and killed.”

“His reputation is fearsome.”

“Maybe,” Neil agreed and stared at the orb. “But he also had many enemies. Some of them might still be alive. And if they got wind of the information…”

“If someone maybe spread a rumor through the winds…” Jean murmured, eyes glinting. 

“Yes. Something like that.”

They just sat there looking at each other for a few seconds and then Jean smiled at Neil, all teeth and as wicked as he used to be, and Neil gave him a tight-lipped smile back. 

“I accept,” Jean said and a subtle wind of power washed through all of them as Jean delivered the message around, his power so strong that it made Jean close his eyes. Neil just looked at his serene expression, knowing that Jean would be distracted for a few seconds with finally feeling his magic belonging to him again. 

He took this opportunity to look around the bedroom, not bothering to pretend that he wasn't seeking Andrew's eyes. Andrew gave him a bored expression, but Neil knew it was a façade. Andrew's dragon was restless as if he himself wanted to get up from his chair and go after Neil's father. 

Neil wanted to tease him but he wouldn't do it in front of an audience. He also wouldn't do it when Andrew was still processing being a priest. 

Somehow, Andrew made it clear that he could guess what Neil was thinking. He showed his middle finger to Neil, which made Neil give a quick grin.

There are people asking if you'll bless them if they take on the task.” Jean's voice sounded tired and breathy. It still kind of startled Neil from looking at Andrew. 

“Oh,” Neil said after processing what he'd heard. “Sure.”

“I don't think it's a fair trade, though,” Jean rasped. 

“What?” 

“I don't think spreading a rumor or finding someone willing to kill is enough to pay you for saving my life.”

“Believe me,” Neil said, dryly. “To me, his death would be equivalent to saving my life. But if you want to do something directly, figure out who Moriyama used to find us the second time.”

Jean nodded and didn't linger. When he was finally gone, Neil took a deep breath that was mirrored by Nicky but, unlike Neil, Nicky didn't keep his mouth shut. 

“What the fuck happened when you went out?” Nicky's voice was loud and a bit unstable. “I thought that guy was a bad guy or something?” 

“Well…” Neil said and looked at Andrew, trying to think of reasons to not be honest. “Not anymore.”

Taking a deep breath, Neil sat up straight and started to talk about what happened—not just that day but also enough about his own life. 

When he talked about Moriyama, Kevin paled and had to sit down. When he talked about their deals, Kevin looked ready to pass out. 

“Wait, so you made us travel around the world… why?” Nicky asked, confused. “If you wanted to come to Japan only to get killed or something, and you'll need to talk about that with a friend from Abby ‘cause _what the fuck Neil,_ why couldn't you just go through the Pacific instead of the Atlantic Ocean?”

Neil wrinkled his nose and didn't want to reply. Still, he'd been honest until now, there was no reason to start backing up now. “It has to do with what I'm the god of.”

Nicky waited but when it was clear Neil wouldn't offer the answer on his own, he repeated a question he'd made Neil on the last few days a lot. “What are you the god of?” 

Neil took a deep breath. 

“Challenges.”

The four of them looked at Neil with different levels of confusion.

“I fought you were the god of fights and wars?” Kevin blurted out. 

Neil flinched. “Wars are my father's godhead.”

“That's… so fucking lame,” Aaron commented and visibly lost interest in the conversation.

“How the fuck does that work?” Nicky asked. 

“If you had a duel coming up that you were nervous about, you could pray for me and I'd bless you,” Neil explained. “If you were on a quest and needed strength to defeat a monster, I could help you.”

“It still doesn't explain why we had to go through the more harder path—” Nicky stopped himself and stared at Neil. “You _wanted_ to go through the harder path.”

Neil didn't say anything but his silence was enough. Aaron made an inarticulate sound of rage and got up, walking up and down the small space of the room. 

“You got a lot of money for it!” Neil argued and Nicky gave him an incredulous look. 

“He's lying,” Andrew said and everybody stopped to look at him. “He is the God of All The Idiots In The World. I was right all along.”

* * *

Neil got tired of everybody giving him the stink eye and left to go to the roof of the hotel. It was clear that none of them had noticed the extra money they'd gotten and Andrew also apparently didn't tell them. When they noticed, Neil hoped it would make their whining stop. 

It didn't take long for it to start raining and Neil sprawled on the roof, looking at the sky with a small smile. He knew that it would probably rain for a while because Jean was happy for the first time in a long time. 

Neil was also happy since now there was a clear path towards a better life—or rather a _life, period_. He would have to deal with the repercussions of giving up on dying on his mental health probably, but for now, he had hope again that everything would be alright. 

The door behind him opened loudly and Neil turned to see Andrew walking towards him. 

“Your expression is disgusting,” Andrew informed him, prodding Neil's face with one of his foot which made Neil grin harder. “Stop it. Change it now.” 

“I'm sorry that the happiness of a finally free creature upsets you this much,” Neil said, as solemnly as he could. “Unfortunately, I appear to be unable to control my face.”

Andrew snorted inelegantly but let Neil externalize his good mood while he sat at the edge of the roof. It was quite windy this up high, especially with the rain but Neil was not bothered by the chills running down his spine. 

He was free. Fucking free. 

He took the orb out of his pant’s pocket and looked at it for a few seconds. It shone brightly at him and Neil couldn't even muster a little bit of disgust towards it, even knowing where it came from. 

Each immortality was unique but all of them were beautiful. Neil had seen his own immortality only once but the contrast between this one and his was incredible. This immortality contained an obvious chill in it. Neil's had been a fiery mass of warm colors and the inside of it moved with thick liquid. It didn't have the delicate look his father's had. Neil's immortality was sturdy, resilient. 

Like Neil himself. 

Neil considered the orb for a while longer but quickly grew more interested in the questions his brain wanted to bombard Andrew with. He settled for asking, “Why did you come after me?” Andrew looked at him and Neil felt the need to clarify. “Before. When you were alerted that I was in danger.”

“You sent me a shitload of unwanted money. I thought you were re-signing the contract.” 

Neil shook his head, although he really wanted to shake Andrew. “There was an explanation in the email. Don't lie to me.”

“Why shouldn't I? You're such a good liar yourself. I was bound to learn how to do it.”

Neil tsked at him. Andrew tsked back, but it was clearly in mockery. Neil turned his head to give a sour look to Andrew's profile, but instead, he found himself observing Andrew. 

“Andrew,” Neil said. “Truth for a truth?” 

Andrew snarled without turning to even look at Neil. Although he clearly did not like it, Andrew looked at Neil for a few seconds and then turned his eyes back to the expansive view in front and under them. 

“I know intimately the looks and the sounds of someone who's suicidal.”

Neil swallowed dryly, turning to look at the view too. “Intimately as personal experience?” 

Andrew exhaled loudly. 

“Truth for a truth, Neil,” he reminded quietly. Andrew took his sweet time thinking of what he wanted to ask. “Are you going to run away now?”

Neil looked at him in silence for a long time, holding his breath when Andrew returned his look after a while. Neil exhaled slowly, and said, “No. I don't think so.”

Andrew nodded. 

“What about you?” Neil asked back, raising the orb high enough to show it to Andrew. “Are you going to run?”

Neil saw Andrew clench his dragon and his jaw, both wanting to show his displeasure but being owned over by Andrew's sigh.

“I don't run,” Andrew told him, making Neil smile. “That's more your style.”

Neil inclined his head conceding the point and tried to hold back his smile. 

“Do I gain anything? From being your priest, I mean.”

“You get a power boost,” Neil said and shrugged. “You live longer. Might get abilities closer to mine if you keep being my priest.”

“And if I choose the immortality?”

“You'll be immortal.”

“Nothing else?” 

Neil nodded and Andrew hummed.

“Why did you give us all your money?”

Neil snorted. “It wasn't all my money. Just a large portion of it.” Andrew didn't react to that, clearly just waiting for an answer. “Think of it as a tip for a service well done.”

Andrew shook his head. “I can't accept that. Think of something that we can do that might justify that amount of money.”

“Well… you can escort me back to the US? Don't worry though,” Neil added quickly when Andrew frowned at him. It doesn't need to be by dragonback. We can fly on a plane or something. I think I have a passport.”

Andrew just snorted but the lack of complaints meant he would do it for that reason. 

Neil took a deep breath and went back to watching the sky. 

* * *

It took four days for the rain to stop—which perplexed the citizens of Tokyo since it was very unseasonable—but when it was over Nicky wanted to visit every single tourist trap possible in the last two days they had in Tokyo. 

Andrew apparently took his extended protection detail seriously, even though they'd agreed that he would protect Neil _on the trip back_. 

Still, Andrew made sure to dictate which clothes Neil used in public and was always by Neil's side when they were out. 

When their week was up though, they made their way to the airport and purchased airplane tickets to the United States with no incidents at all. 

Nicky was going through every shop in the duty-free shops at the airport and buying tiny trinkets for the rest of the Fox Security employees. Kevin kept ranting at him about how much food he was taking back and how bad all of it was, but Nicky only response was, “Shut up, Kevin, you're the only one who cares about being healthy.”

Aaron was as far away from them all as Andrew would allow. In turn, Andrew seemed to be giving him the illusion of not being watched, by watching the planes visible thanks to the airport glass windows.

It was weird but Neil could feel how restless Andrew's dragon was. He stood near Andrew, not caring about being ignored until he noticed that the dragon was specifically restless whenever a plane got off the ground or when they landed. 

Neil had a theory but he didn't want to confirm it. The irony could only extend so far, right? 

He had to confirm though. That was why he turned to Andrew and said, “Truth for a truth.” 

Andrew didn't bother to acknowledge that he'd heard him. Neil shrugged but asked what he wanted to know. “Why is your dragon so restless?”

Andrew turned slowly to stare Neil down. Neil could identify that Andrew was, apparently, surprised by Neil. His squint said that he wasn't pleased by it though. Nonetheless, Neil looked back at him calmly, trying not to influence how this would play out. 

It took a few minutes but a plane appeared out of the window and Andrew snapped his eyes back to watch it. Only when the plane was safely in the air, flying to its destination that Andrew actually answered. “Don't like heights.”

Neil understood that he was right and that Andrew really hadn't lied once during their game but it was still unbelievable. 

“You're a _dragon._ ”

“Yes.”

“You _fly._ ”

Andrew raised one eyebrow. “Your point is?”

Neil waited for him to say the punchline to the joke but apparently, there was none. He shook his head, dumbfounded, but didn't try to ask anything else that Andrew clearly thought were dumb questions. 

Neil thought about offering to bless the plane so it wouldn't fall, or maybe telling Andrew some factoid about the rarity of plane crashes but that would be dumb, only make Andrew retaliate with whatever he could think to hurt Neil and also Neil didn't know if those factoids were correct. Mathematically he was probably right but Neil just didn't understand technology enough to be certain. 

His silence was not exactly compensated. “Are you going to give that immortality to someone?”

Neil inhaled sharply and tried not to let himself show how much that question bothered him. He thought about lying, but in the end, he said, “I don't know. To be honest, I wanted to destroy what hopefully is gonna be the last piece of my father still in this world, but it might be useful in the future. I guess I'm going to put it in a new secure place and then wait on it for another century or so. If I still want to destroy by them, I will do it.”

Andrew didn't comment or made any indication if he thought it was a good or bad decision. Neil kept a close eye on his own breathing, trying not to get anxious about how his father was, as far as Neil knew, still alive. 

It was a huge help that his flight was announced to begin boarding. Andrew gave his back to the glass window and went to corral his people. Neil watched for a moment before getting up and following him. 

* * *

It was a little bit weird to be back at Fox Security, sitting in a chair while Wymack reviewed the reports that he'd made all of the others write.

Not only was it weird but sometimes Wymack would inhale and appear to be almost angry. Other times, he'd stop and look at Neil with something indecipherable in his expression, which was enough to make Neil squirm in discomfort. 

When the last stack of paper was put aside, Wymack inhaled loudly and then intertwined his fingers, giving Neil a look too serious for what Abby had dubbed “A chill chat about what you liked or disliked about the service.”

“That's… quite a fucking story,” Wymack said, with feeling. Neil gave a bland smile as a response but didn’t have time to articulate an actual response because the door behind him opened with a lot of force, banging into the wall and making both Neil and Wymack jump a little.

In the doorway, there was Andrew. Looking fucking unphased by their reactions. Neil looked at him but then turned to pay attention to Wymack when he started to get up from his chair. 

“Close the fucking door, Minyard,” Wymack growled and Neil did his best not to twitch just for being in the presence of a large angry man. He used to be a properly worshipped god, dammit. Even though it had been centuries since he was loomed over by a large man, Neil refused to let his traumas dictate how he interacted with them. 

Neil's internal drama gave Andrew enough time for him to sit in the chair next to Neil without him really taking notice of it. Neil took a deep breath and said, “I didn't know Andrew would be here.”

“Normally he wouldn't, be he claims you paid him to keep the service going for a little longer?” Wymack’s tone of voice made it clear that he didn't believe Andrew, not totally. At least not enough to take him at his own word, apparently. 

Neil sighed. “I didn't exactly hire him for little longer. Andrew just doesn't understand the concept of tips, apparently.”

“I'm very much familiar with that concept,” Andrew said, patting his pockets and taking out his cigarettes. Before he could light one up, Wymack did _something_ magic that made Neil's arm hair stand up. Andrew glared at Wymack for a few seconds and then finished his sentence. “I just don't think that more than 10 million dollars should be considered a tip.”

Wymack instantly gave Neil an intense look, which was, you know. Uncomfortable. “I'm torn between agreeing with Minyard but thinking he's dumb for not taking the money, or believing _you're_ the fucking disaster person who actually doesn't understand tips and it's the idiot here.”

“You have my story or part of it, I assume,” Neil snarled, trying to reign in his temper but not really trying at all. “I wasn't supposed to come back out of that alive. At least, I didn't think I would. I'd have no use for the money.”

“The fuck would I want your pity money for?”

“To shove it up your ass or blow it up in whatever idiotic thing Nicky wanted. I don't know and the point is _I wasn't going to find out._ ”

“This is pointless,” Wymack intervened, his voice booming enough that Neil flinched instinctively and then wanted to kick himself when he saw what Wymack’s face was doing towards him. Wymack took a deep breath and kept talking in a much more normal volume. “Mr. Josten, do you still think you need protection?”

Neil thought about how they still haven't heard anything about his father's death. Also, how he would have to worry about his father's minions if he _was_ killed and Neil was even remotely blamed for his death. Neil thought about finally trying to find out if any of the immortals he used to know would want to help him. 

He also thought about how he'd already gone through the process of accepting he would die and then he just didn't. 

It was a lot. 

Neil then tried to practice a little bit of honesty, and said, “I… think so.”

“Are you satisfied with keeping Andrew was your single protection detail?”

“It depends on how… circumstances will play out, but for now? Yes.”

“Then we'll do the debriefing sometime later. Talk details with Abby and Andrew, will you?”

It was clear by the way that Wymack instantly re-opened the folders that he wanted them fucking gone. So Neil got up of his chair and went out, not really understanding how everything happened but just knowing that he would keep spending time with these people that had kind of grown on him without him noticing. 

Andrew followed him closely out, but still with enough space between them so that neither was invading the other’s personal bubble. Abby looked at both of them when she heard the door open and close and she frowned at Neil. 

“Are you okay?” she asked, concern embedded in her face. 

Neil thought about his unclear future, where he didn't exactly need to run anymore (or wouldn't in a few days when The News arrived). He thought about how the other employees would probably end up getting wind of bits of Neil's past and try to breach the subject with him. Mostly, he thought about how, for once in a long while, he had time to just… relax. And relearn how to be someone, other than just trying his hardest to be invisible. 

Even with all the swirly mess going on inside his head, Neil looked at Abby and said, “I'm fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did everybody notice the chapter count???? yup yup its getting to its end!
> 
> the problem is: since i kind of changed how this was going to end (this was supposed to be the last one), the last one MIGHT be late.
> 
> good news is, this will become a series!!!!!!! Nothing is written but i'll get to it. When im out of my midterms lmao thank you for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it finally ends
> 
> with a bit of an underwhelming battle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is basically what i imagine Neil would be like if he wasn't such a squirmy little bugger. Also, if he had more trust in his family than he fears his progenitor.

Explaining to the other Foxes what had basically happened during the whole trip was something that Neil had not even thought about doing. 

It wasn't because he didn't trust them or liked them (he remembered how _nice_ most of them had been before they went away for more than a month). Neil just got away from Abby’s desk after answering a couple of basic questions about Andrew's new lone position (the way that Abby’s eyebrows went really high when she saw how much money the others had gotten as a ‘tip’ replaying in his head against and again) and longed for a proper lie down so he could come to terms with _everything._

 _Also_ , so he could find a place to hide his father's immortality again or destroy it.

Abby had offered him the same place that he'd slept when he stayed at their facilities, and Neil didn't need directions to get to it. They had arrived at the Fox Security headquarters so late that he hoped everyone was asleep, but they entered the communal living room and were faced with almost all of the company's employees there, giving him wide eyes. 

It didn't matter in the end if Neil wanted to tell them anything because Nicky was incapable of keeping his little gossipy tongue inactive. Seth was the only one who didn't seem blown away by the revelation that Neil was a god. 

“Like, an actual god?” Matt was saying, looking at Neil with stars in his eyes when he noticed that he was in the room, approaching him and blocking Neil's path. Neil looked at Matt and then at Nicky, and it didn't take him long to connect the fact that while he was inside talking to Wymack, Nicky had been outside telling the four winds everything that happened. “With temples and everything?”

“No,” Andrew said behind Neil. “He's obviously one of the fake ones.”

Matt looked so unbalanced by that that Andrew was able to shove him aside while he dragged Neil by the collar away. 

It didn't mean that Neil was spared from being questioned that day. Actually, even though his contract with Andrew was technically over and his new protection detailing was only active when Neil needed to go outside (which would be _never_ in the near future), he was still watching Neil as if he was going to explode at any second. 

Neil doubts it was because he was worried about Neil but rather about his own damn self. However, Neil had no idea how to convince him that Neil wouldn’t force him to behave however Andrew seemed to think priests should behave, even after a week of Andrew being completely free. 

The staring was disconcerting though. Enough that Neil started to voluntarily spend more time with Allison, Seth, Matt, Dan, and Renee, just because Andrew didn't seem to enjoy being in the same vicinity as that many people. 

It worked, for a while. It also backfired because some of them (Allison. Just Allison) were incredibly poignant with questions about his past. 

Easy to say that he was relieved when Allison got hired two weeks after Neil came back to the US for a month of work. The rest of them seemed to be more worried about Neil's well-being and what he actually knew about modern life, technology—and were appalled by learning that it was basically nothing. 

Matt introduced the idea of a weekly movie night to “educate Neil”. It didn't matter what they watched, Neil was still confused about it. The sentiment was nice, though. 

The confusion though came from the fact that Neil saw movie nights as a distraction—and it didn't matter how many distractions the others tried to create, Neil was still not exactly always with them, mentally. The lack of any kind of news from Jean was not ideal, to say the least, worrying when Neil was at his worse. 

Moriyama's silence was also troublesome. To keep his word (and safety, thanks to the piece of raw magic only Neil would be able to get out of him), he'd have to put Neil under some kind of surveillance, and Neil was _sure_ that he wasn't being watched at all. 

The piece of raw magic that Neil had planted on Moriyama, still connected to a small piece of Neil's own magic was very clear about Moriyama not having betrayed him—yet—or he would've been alerted. However, the fact that they were on their third week back and there had been zero contact was a cause of constant anxiety to Neil. 

He knew that everybody around him knew that something was wrong with him, but no one seemed to want to force Neil to talk. 

“Are you worried that Wymack is going to throw you out?” Dan blurted out in a whisper during their fourth movie night, her words being protected by the popping of the popcorn they had been entrusted to make. “Because we already voted on it before you guys came back and you're allowed to stay as long as you need to.”

Neil looked at her for a few seconds before replying. “I'm not worried about that, no.”

Dan bit her lip while she turned the stove off and went to put the popcorn in the big bucket she'd gotten from a high cabinet, filling a little less than a third of it. She put more corn and oil on the pot and finally looked at Neil while she turned the stove on without looking. It was clear she _really_ wanted to ask but wouldn't.

Neil sighed. Nicky had been told the details of what happened with the Moriyama but he didn't seem to remember anything other than the more “epic side” of their trip that he had seen and had told the Foxes no actual details about everything else that had happened. Aaron had had no interest in actually contributing to the gossiping, Kevin had been too scared of the Moriyamas to even listen to the conversation (and also has no interest in gossiping), and Andrew… well.

“Remember that I wanted protection during my trip?” Dan nodded. “They did attack us when we were traveling, but since then… There's been nothing.” 

Dan nodded again, a serious expression on her face. “You do know we all can and will protect you if they are crazy enough to invade Fox Security, right? You're safe.”

Neil thought about saying that Seth definitely wouldn't. 

Neil thought about lying to her. 

Neil thought about telling the truth of what his fears actually made him believe. 

In the end, he said, “I know,” even though he knew that if his father invaded Fox Security, especially after being quiet for so long, they would be probably outnumbered and definitely outpowered, and there were no guarantees to his safety. 

* * *

Neil had been living with the Foxes for one month and a half of not seeing the outside from anywhere other than a window before Andrew had a client interested in hiring him and the others.

The first thing Andrew did when Wymack came to tell him that someone wanted an interview was to give Neil a very intense, searching look. Neil just raised one single eyebrow at him, still nodding at whatever Matt was trying to teach him to do on Matt's phone (even though Neil had been lost in his explanation a long time ago).

With tense shoulders, Andrew followed Wymack to the interview and came back after thirty minutes to tell Nicky, Kevin, and Aaron to go pack. They were gone in under two hours, Nicky being the only one who bothered saying goodbyes to his coworkers. 

As soon as they had left the room, the other Foxes started to bet—how long they'd be gone, what was going to be destroyed, how much of the money they'd have to donate to whatever public or private construction company that would need to be paid for fixing their damages, and many other things. Neil listened to them without really paying attention, and also refused to participate. 

It was the first time he was this far away from Andrew and the thin tendril he could feel stretching towards the dragon filled him with such nostalgia that he almost choked on it. He thought about other priests he had in the past but rapidly cleared his mind from them. It didn't do him any good to dwell on that. 

It took four days for the four of them to come back. They had not appeared on the TV this time, mainly because they'd been hired to work as security guards in a nightclub that was hosting an underground rave for three nights and they were there just to manhandle drunk people that passed the decorum limits. 

The only interesting thing that had happened was apparently Andrew had received a new complaint to be added to his Fox Security profile. 

“I've never known that Andrew could also _control fire when human!_ ” Nicky had told the other Foxes while Andrew was being yelled at by Wymack. “There was this guy who tried to use his height to scare Andrew off but Andrew just punched him in the stomach and suddenly his shirt was on fire! And Andrew's hands were still burning! It looked _so cool!_ ”

“Are all dragons pyrotechnic?” Matt asked, frowning. 

All of them looked at Aaron, who scowled. “No,” he answered and high tailed out of the living room to his own room. 

Of course, when Andrew finally got out of Wymack's office, the first thing he did was to search for Neil with his eyes. He didn't need to say anything for it to be obvious that he really wanted to have a few moments alone with Neil. To yell at him, maybe? Neil didn't know but he approached Andrew while the others were distracted and said, “Find a place where we can train. I’ll teach you how to control it.”

Andrew inhaled loudly but nodded. 

The rest of the day passed in a blur to Neil as he tried to remember all the steps necessary in order to teach new priests how to control their abilities. It was amazing how Andrew had acquired the abilities _so soon_ , too. It usually took months and months of constant exposure to Neil's magic for priests to start exhibiting anything similar to what Neil could do. 

Was Andrew stronger than Neil's dead priests or were those people weaker by nature? Or was it a case of belief, and the priests who actually thought Neil was divine weren't even close to being touched by magic because of their devotion? Neil grimaced and tried to get rid of those thoughts. It was not only rude but also a disservice to the memories of those who were dedicated to him centuries ago. 

It also wouldn't make any difference for Andrew's situation. What mattered now was to teach him how to control it. 

So when Neil heard the lightest tap possible in the bedroom he had begun to share with Matt (after Neil made an offhand comment about how it was weird to sleep alone again), Neil was ready to get up and follow Andrew to the roof of the building. 

Neil took a deep breath when they were up there and then sat on the ground, patting it to convince Andrew to do the same. 

“First things first, the fire you get from me is different from your own fire because it has a different source,” Neil said as Andrew got himself situated. “It's better we train at night because during the day they're gonna be stronger. My powers get a boost from the sun.”

Neil got the five candles he'd asked Wymack for (and got a weird look but no questions) and put them all on the ground between in front of their crossed legs. Andrew looked at them and frowned lightly. 

“I want you to light only the middle one with your mind only,” Neil said and wait until Andrew understood that was all the direction he was going to get. 

In less than thirty minutes, Andrew had melted all the candles into an unrecognizable wax mess.

Neil grinned and used his hands to mold them until they were more candle-shaped. 

“Again,” he prompted Andrew. 

They worked until the sky got a couple of shades lighter. 

* * *

That was the start of Neil and Andrew spending more time together without any of the others noticing—some of them maybe noticing but not asking. 

Well. Wymack definitely did notice. He had access to the security footage, after all, and the roof was obviously full of them. Neil could see Andrew looking at them from time to time, probably wanting to turn them off while they were up there. Wymack never even hinted about their sessions, although he'd give Neil interested looks from time to time. 

Neil was good at giving instructions on how Andrew should be concentrating to be able to channel Neil's fire (especially after the first few days when Neil just let Andrew fumbling on his own without intervening) and Andrew was good at following his directions—except when he wasn't. 

Neil didn't know why but sometimes Andrew had a lot of difficult taming the fire even if in other days he would manipulate it almost as good as Neil himself.

In those days, Andrew was always tense and broodier. Neil would watch him struggle and get nowhere. They took a lot of breaks and, after the second day Andrew got to the roof like that, Neil started to bring hot chocolate with him just in case Andrew was snappier and quieter than usual. 

It didn't work to help Andrew control the fire better but it did always make him relax. 

* * *

After the third time that Neil had given him a thermos filled with hot chocolate, Andrew waited until they were in the living quarters of the building and signaled to Neil to follow him to the kitchen, where he handed a piece of folded paper over. 

Neil unfolded it and skimmed through the pages while Andrew washed the thermos. It took a while until he noticed it was a _fairy tale_ —one with dreams of kidnapping shadows _._

The smile that wanted to curve Neil's mouth was impossible to control but he was safe from Andrew seeing it. Andrew didn't have eyes on his back, after all. 

* * *

That started a ritual in their schedules. At least three times a week they trained and unless Andrew was out on a mission, Neil would bring something sweet for Andrew and he always got a folded piece of paper in return. 

The only time when Neil had not received one was when Andrew decided to give Neil what he knew was a smartphone, even though he hadn't worried to learn how to use it beyond the little puzzle game Matt sometimes forced him to play (because he was “too stressed” or something).

When Neil raised his eyebrows at Andrew, he only received a blank look back. However, when Neil was first woken up with a message at 3 in the morning that said, “distract me” he understood that Andrew had found a way for them to talk even under friendly surveillance. 

* * *

Neil's peace was bound to be interrupted sometime, or at least that was how Neil understood statistics—or maybe he should call it fate.

Jean's message came to him at night, right after Neil had finished training with Andrew. The small breeze that ruffled Neil's hair even though his window was closed made him sit up straight and force himself to listen carefully. 

“ _Roof_ ,” the breeze whispered. “ _Go to the roof_.”

Neil clattered around a bit but eventually was able to stand up, looking at Matt to confirm he hadn't woken up before making his way back to the roof. 

It was now an incredibly windy night—something it hadn't been half an hour ago when Neil and Andrew trained. Neil looked around, knowing he wouldn't see anything but wanting to check.

“ _Hello, old friend,_ ” the wind said. 

“Hi, Jean,” Neil said back, sitting down and making himself comfortable, trying not to shudder at how chilly the wind was. “How are you?”

“ _Well,_ ” the wind got warmer for a few seconds, making Neil smile. It was obvious that Jean was much better than just ‘well’ and unable to hide it. “ _I have the information you asked for, information you didn't ask but will be important, a message and a warning._ ”

Neil's smile was instantly gone. “Someone's been very busy, huh?” Neil hummed. “Please, start with whatever’s gonna be the good news.”

“ _Two Moriyamas are dead: Riko and Kengo._ ”

“...The one that made a deal with me is neither of them, correct?”

“ _That was Ichirou,_ ” Jean said, and Neil could clearly hear the ‘You idiot’. “ _Kengo was Ichirou’s father, the old master who was sick._ ”

“That affects me… how?”

“ _With some unfortunate bad consequences,_ ” Jean said and his voice sounded sad. “ _Ichirou freed your father._ ”

Neil froze and his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Jean didn't wait for him to process the immediate fear that filled him at that information. 

“ _Too many attacks on your father's life were made. He was a liability waiting around to attract too much attention when the Young Lord was more worried about cleaning the house and taking over the businesses._ ”

“So he then decided it would be better to break the promise?”

“ _He has people watching you,_ ” Jean argued in a reasonable voice. “ _His message to you is_ ‘Good luck. I'm doing my part’.”

Neil scoffed and said, “Barely.”

The wind calmed down a little and Neil looked up at the night sky. His father was loose in the world. Neil could be in danger again. His father was probably gonna get attacked on his way to Neil but chances were good that Neil was going to see his father after a long time.

Neil thought about the Foxes and how they could get hurt. 

He thought about Andrew, who was getting stronger and more refined with his new powers. 

He thoughts about Ichirou Moriyama and how trustworthy he could be with his words. 

Neil's mind was a whirlwind and Neil sighed as it went spinning around and around. 

“What about the information I did ask you to search for?”

“ _It was a man called Drake who offered the information about Minyard,_ ” Jean said and Neil remembered the supermarket where he'd first heard about a dragon called Drake. He also thought about a story of children born with monsters inside them. “ _Drake lived with Minyard and still had traces of him on some items in his house. He didn't accept any money for them._ ”

“Let me guess, he wanted to see Andrew again?”

Jean didn't confirm nor denied, probably because that was more than the information Neil asked for but the silence was enough of an answer for Neil. 

“So that's a piece of wanted information, an unwanted one, a message and now… what's the warning?”

Jean was quiet for so long that Neil thought he'd already gone away. Maybe he had already given Neil the warning—maybe it was about how his father was free? Neil got up and was going back to the roof’s door when the wind picked itself up again and made him stop. 

“ _Your father is not alone_ ,” Jean said. “ _Be careful with his priests._ ”

Neil's stomach fell all the way to the bottom of the building, or at least that what it felt like for him. He knew there was a probability that his father wouldn't be alone but the fact that he'd been able to have _priests—_ plural—while being controlled by the Moriyama? 

That was worrisome. 

Neil didn't bother asking Jean how many there'd be coming, though. He knew he wouldn't get an answer.

Jean remembered what the old Neil was the god of, and how he used to like his challenges. Neil knew Jean would treat him the same way as before. With a sigh, Neil opened the door and went back to his room. 

* * *

Neil got out of his room to watch the sunrise the next day, completely unaffected by his lack of sleep—because when he got back in bed, he'd only been able to turn and turn until he gave up. 

Wymack called Neil to his office with another one of his goofy orange balloons after a couple of hours of Neil just watching the sky changing colors. 

Neil entered Wymack’s office to the sight of himself on Wymack’s computer screen alone on the roof in a night setting, his mouth moving but apparently talking to no one. Neil looked at Wymack and the footage of himself yesterday, and Wymack pressed a key on his computer to make Neil's face freeze in a terrified expression. 

Neil could probably guess what part that had been. 

“The audio is completely useless, by the way,” Wymack said when Neil just stared at the video, and that was enough to make Neil go back to paying attention to him. “But I have to say that it’s a bit worrying that you don't seem to sleep a lot.”

“I'm a god,” Neil told him quietly, eyes fleeting back to the screen and then back to Wymack. “I don't need to sleep that much.”

“What you need is a fucking hobby instead of being cooped up inside this fucking building walking around just when someone is pulling you somewhere.” Wymack gestured for Neil to sit down and he complied. “Since you don't want to talk about what's going on with any of us, at least I'm glad that you _aren't_ bottling everything up. Although I do recommend that it's better to talk to a sentient person instead of the night, you know?”

Neil blinked at Wymack who gave no indication about knowing if he did or didn't know that Neil had actually been talking to a person last night. 

“I've received a piece of information that the head of the Moriyama family is going to change due to a death, and that's gonna break whatever possible good mood Kevin might’ve had for this morning.” Wymack crossed his fingers under his chin and gave Neil an intense look. “Do you want to contribute to the miserableness that is gonna be around the place today?”

Neil thought quickly about his options. He could break his contract with Andrew and go back to being a good little hermit god, sporadically having contact with normal human beings while he waited for his father to find him. He could go out and find someone interested in his father's immortality, all the while trusting that a man who was conned into protecting him would have enough power (or care enough) to keep his word. Trusting that the enemies of his father who knew how vulnerable he was right now would be able to find him and weaken him enough before he was able to reach Neil. 

The thing about being the son of the god of wars( even though you don't particularly think the same way) is that you learn that numbers are important. Neil and his mother had let his father's threat of numbers frighten them enough to keep retreating and retreating in the past, without even searching for any way or anyone that could help them. 

Neil had let his trust on his mother's divinity be stronger than his own, trusting that she was smarter than him without trying to rationalize it. They both let his father threaten them enough to make them forget they were gods themselves. Neil as the god of challenges, his mother as the goddess of wisdom—both abandoning their divinities to embrace the fear that his father provoked on them. 

Neil thought about the Foxes and how he wasn't alone anymore. How they never let him forget who he had been, and how they helped him become someone again. How he could stay and try to organize their forces enough so Neil would finally be able to fight back. Finally, be _really_ free. 

Maybe even give up his immortality. 

Neil thought about Andrew and fairy tales. Thought about the dozens of messages that they traded, even though Andrew barely said anything to him when they had company. He thought about the comfort that feeling Andrew's dragon was and how _good_ it felt to be near a fire creature. Someone not exactly like him but familiar enough. 

Someone who was connected to him, someone he could always feel. 

Neil looked at Wymack and trusted, really trusted him for the first time. Not only on the man in front of him but all the others too. 

“I kind of have a plan to get rid of the people who are after me,” Neil said and then grimaced. “I don't think any of you are going to like it though.”

“Does it involve the destruction of property? Because we're used to that.”

“It might involve using me as bait.”

“Oh, _hell_.”

* * *

Neil was alone in the middle of… whatever park Seth had driven him to. He didn't remember the name and he was too nervous to care. 

The other Foxes had fought against his plans (not Andrew. Andrew had stared at him for a long time and then sat down without a word, letting the others be as loud as they wanted) but none of them had refused to help. They wouldn't have to actually do a lot if everything went as it should, but Neil's plans were heavily inspired by future circumstances. Neil huddled on the oversized jacket Nicky had loaned to him and watched the empty park as he waited. 

It didn't take long for Neil to hear Jean's voice in the wind, hearing the confusion and judgment loud in the god's voice. “ _What are you doing?!_ ”

“Getting to the end of all this.” Neil changed positions on at the cement bench he had sat on what felt like forever ago and watched a fluffy cloud moving across the sky. 

There was silence after that and Neil settled himself to wait for however long he'd need to before someone interesting appeared. 

It didn't take long for _Jean_ to come back with another message. 

“ _Ichirou was informed about this_ ,” Jean said after around twenty minutes of silence. “ _He's not happy._ ”

Neil just shrugged, knowing that Jean wouldn't be able to get the visual of it but hoping that whoever Moriyama had put to watch over Neil was watching—and talking. 

Hours passed before Neil finally felt his presence. The thing about dealing with wars is that the smell and taste of the air that announces big battles follow you. The threat of wars had always been bigger than the conflict itself, after all. 

Even through the cloud of nerves and fear that was surrounding him, Neil was able to feel the shift in the air when his father appeared at the other side of the park, flanked by four people Neil didn't know but that were probably his minions, maybe even his priests. 

Neil let them approach him, trying his best to keep a calm demeanor. When they were ten feet apart his father entourage stopped in unison. 

“Hello, poor excuse for a son,” his father called in a clear and booming voice. 

“Hello, mortal,” Neil called back, feeling triumph over how his father clenched his jaw tight enough that Neil could almost hear it straining. 

“So… what is this?” His father asked, after a very long stretch of silence. “You're finally giving up? Where's your bitch of a mother, by the way?”

“She's dead. You got to her two, three centuries ago,” Neil informed him, ignoring the other questions.

His father gave a tight, satisfied smile that made Neil's blood boil but after a deep breath, Neil got the control of himself back. 

“I wish I could say that I believed you, but I don't trust your word on anything. That's how you two were able to win a battle against me, after all,” his father said and looked around. “She's going to jump on me at the first chance she has in this joke of a trap.”

Neil spread his arms wide, raising both his eyebrows. “You think she'd let me do this if she was alive? This is not smart at all. This is my idea and mine only.”

“So you _did_ get tired of running.” His father gave a single step forward and his people didn't follow him. “Are you giving up? Is this where you want to die? Nowhere important with no one watching?” 

“In a sense,” Neil conceded and got up. “I challenge you for a duel.”

His father was silent for a couple of beats and then he started to chuckle lowly, getting louder and louder. 

“You think you can beat me in a duel? _You_?” His father looked back at his people and they started to laugh too. “You've always been mediocre at best at dueling and spent most of your energy on running lately, while I worked and fought and killed whoever got in my way. If you want to die, why waste my time with this joke?” 

“What, are you that scared of fighting your son?” Neil goaded him, smirking. His hand trembled when he put them in his pocket and brought the orb of immortality out. His father's eyes followed it hungrily, then quickly changed directions to glare at Neil. “Or are you scared because now that the Moriyamas are done with you, not only are you going to age but you also can be killed much more easily? What was it that they called you? _Nathan?_ That sounds pretty human to me. Do you even remember what you used to be called?” 

His father didn't bother replying but one of his lackeys—the only woman—snarled at Neil silently. 

“I accept your challenge,” Nathan said, voice scratchy like gravel. “As the challenged, I call that the duel is over at first blood.”

Neil nodded and tried not to look as eager as he felt at those words. He had hoped his father would say that and he felt triumphant that he could still predict him after all this time. “Give me your word that your followers won't attempt to help you while we're dueling?” 

His father said the words and Neil waited for him to ask the same of Neil.

He didn't. Neil frowned for a second and then his eyes went wide as his father conjured up the pair of axes he had always been fond of and charged towards Neil, a insnarl on his face as his axes silently cried to be fed—Flesh and Blood, Neil recalled. 

That was not how this was supposed to go. His father was supposed to ask Neil to promised no one would aid him as well. Did his father truly think he had no help? Was he that cocky that Neil was not a threat? 

As Neil sent a ball of flames in his father's direction, watching him throw himself to the side to dodge it, Neil thought about hubris. About how arrogance was apparently a trait his father had still not gotten over. 

So Neil got the gun Wymack had given him and that the jacket had been masking, and he emptied it on his father's massive body, watching him jerk with each hit until he stopped moving. 

Neil heard the sounds of his father's followers feeling the pain of their god dying, not really caring about their agony. Some of them charged towards Neil and that was when Matt, Seth, and Dan fell from the sky, Andrew landing not that long after in front of Neil, still in dragon form. 

While Matt, Seth, and Dan fought against the three men, Andrew approached Neil and offered him his back to get on. Neil got on it and looked up, seeing Wymack, Kevin, Allison, and Renee watching the fight and evaluating if they were needed. 

They weren't. His father's followers, weakened by his death, were restrained quickly. Andrew growled a warning, making Neil turn towards where he was looking—just in time to see the woman that had snarled at Neil touching his father's corpse and dragging it with her through a portal, closing it just before Andrew's fire reached them. 

Neil thought about the fight in that motel and Neil knew she must have been the puppeteer responsible for that attack. 

Neil heard the other Foxes concerned questions about her and the corpse but he didn't care enough to answer. A corpse was a corpse, nothing else, even if the woman found a necromancer willing to try and work with his father's body. A soul as old as his father's would never be allowed back. That wasn't how the universe worked. 

Neil didn't care what she did with the body. 

He was finally free.

* * *

The Foxes were still partying downstairs but Neil had become just a bit too restless with their company and he felt like he needed air—maybe even more air than he was able to get on the roof of the Foxes’ building. 

He wanted enough air to make him float like he already felt he was doing. Floating in relief, in disbelief.

The door to the roof opened not even half an hour later and Andrew passed through it, chugging the bottle of whatever alcoholic beverage he'd been drinking like it was water. 

“Did I tell you that I thought that was a stupid plan?” Andrew said in a raspy voice, sitting right beside Neil at the edge of the roof. Neil tilted his head, remembering Andrew at the airport, but didn't comment on that. “Because it was. I'm surprised it worked.”

Neil shrugged. “I knew it was stupid. However, I doubted my father would've thought that I'd use human weapons in a duel and I was right. It was stupid of _him_ to forget that I've always liked to fight dirty, though.”

Andrew hummed and they both looked at each other for a few seconds. The night wind picking up momentarily and messing up both their hairs, although only Neil had to raise his hands to get the strands away from his face. 

“Are you going to run again now?” Andrew asked, drinking again so Neil wouldn't be able to see his face for a few moments. 

Neil looked away and thought about what he had prepared for his future—basically nothing. He thought about the little things he'd have to deal with, maybe find Moriyama and get the piece of raw magic out of him but for the first time, he had no immediate worries. 

“I think I'd rather find a new hobby. Maybe I'll become an entertainer,” Neil said and chuckled at Andrew's face.

“And are you going to go away?” Andrew asked and Neil watched as Andrew swallowed nothing, still keeping his gaze away. 

“If you want to stop being a priest, I can go.” Neil's voice was low but he knew from Andrew's face that his words were heard. “But I don't want… I really like it here. But it's your choice.”

Andrew drank again—a sip this time. Neil was suddenly looking deep into his eyes as Andrew swallowed his drink and cleared an invisible droplet from his lips. Neil's gaze went to Andrew's lip and stayed there, even when Andrew opened his mouth to speak. 

“It's useful being your priest,” Andrew said and Neil smiled as he looked again in Andrew's eyes. He didn't need much time to guess the meaning of those words, or even feel how Andrew's dragon was apparently reaching for Neil, for his energy. 

Neil knew that those words truly meant, “Stay”. 

So he stayed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are there plotholes? Probably. I'll be honest and say that i lost my gas again with this story like i did when i first thought of it last year. However, who knows? I might come back and edit it when i fall in love with it again.
> 
> Anyway, thank you all for reading. Im sorry for the anime reference i did, by the away. I already started planning an one-shot that might come in the next two weeks, however right not my priority is a certain big bang. I dont plan on abandoning this series though. I promise.
> 
> Go on my tumblr (also polzkadotz) or comment if you want to request something to be added to this series!

**Author's Note:**

> if you see a typo/think i should add a specific tag/wants to warn me about something, feel free to comment anything! I'll reply to probably everything! I do promise to read it even if I somehow forget to reply. Still, never think im not greateful. I am!
> 
> English is not my first language, so if something feels a bit off, blame that. Lmao.
> 
> if you want to find where i live online, im also polzkadotz on tumblr!


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